A Romantic Interlude
The servant Marya, in a woolly gray bathrobe, opened the door and sent me up to the black, white, and gray room, where the Minister’s secretary, still in the pink gown, was propped up among cushions on the divan. A tray full of cigarette butts showed how she’d been spending her time.
“Well?” she asked as I moved her over to make a seat for myself beside her.
“Thursday morning at four we revolute.”
“I knew you’d do it,” she said, patting my hand.
“It did itself, though there were a few minutes when I could have stopped it by simply knocking our Colonel behind the ear and letting the rest of them tear him apart. That reminds me—somebody’s hired man tried to follow me here tonight.”
“What sort of a man?”
“Short, beefy, forty—just about my size and age.”
“But he didn’t succeed?”
“I slapped him flat and left him sleeping there.”
She laughed and pulled my ear.
“That was Gopchek, our very best detective. He’ll be furious.”
“Well, don’t sic any more of ’em on me. You can tell him I’m sorry I had to hit him twice, but it was his own fault. He shouldn’t have jerked his