There was no sound until a sharp report followed as if he had slapped her face, then the question again :
“Where are they ?”
“In — in there,” gasped the maid.
Roger could picture her pointing towards the door. He bent down and pushed the tape beneath a low table near the wall, then stepped to the door, getting behind it and motioning the woman towards the library. She took no notice but stood staring. It did not open immediately, but one opened elsewhere. There was an oath from Malone and a stifled scream from the maid. She had given her mistress a moment’s respite by misdirecting the man.
A thud — a cry — and silence.
Roger thought tensely : “Where the devil is Sam?”
He looked round the room. There were no fire-irons, nothing at all he could use as a weapon. He didn’t fancy his chances of facing Malone with the same confidence as Bill Tennant had done, even if Malone were not armed.
Doors opened and banged. Roger picked up a small upright chair and kept close to the wall. He saw the handle turn before the door was flung open.
Mrs Cartier cried : “No,
Roger swung the chair on the head and shoulders of the man who stepped in, but before it landed he saw that it was not Malone but a smaller man. The chair crashed on the man’s shoulders and sent him sprawling, the force of the blow carried Roger forward, so that he almost ran into the overdressed figure of Malone. He saw the cosh in the man’s hand as it moved downwards and caught him a paralysing blow at the top of the arm, rose again and struck him on the side of the head. He staggered against the far wall, ears ringing, agonising pain shooting through him.
“This way,” Malone said.
Roger just heard the words but did not understand until two more men entered. The fellow whom he had hit with the chair was getting unsteadily to his feet; there was a trickle of blood on his cheek.
“We’ve got ‘em,” Malone said, with an economy of words which would have seemed remarkable at any time. He glanced at Roger and two of the men stepped to Roger’s side, one striking him with a clenched fist and sending him against the wall again.
Malone stood in front of Mrs Cartier.
His oily hair, dressed high so as to increase his stature, hardly came up to her mouth. She looked down at him, and even through the mists of pain and mortification Roger could see her draw herself up, disdainfully. Yet he believed that she was frightened — as any woman would have been frightened by such a man in similar circumstances.
Malone spoke in his husky voice.
“Listen to me, sister. You had a tape recorder at your office. Where is it?”
Mrs Cartier said : “I have no idea.”
Malone moved his right hand and snapped his fingers under her nose. She moved back involuntarily, and stumbled against the table. The tray of bottles shook and the whisky and brandy swayed up against the sides of the bottles.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Malone said. His vocabulary was grotesque in its limitations, its sprinkling of quasi- American slang. “Just say where it is, and you won’t get hurt.”
“I still don’t understand you,” she insisted.
Roger opened his mouth. “Don’t—” he began.
One of the others struck him a flat-handed blow across the mouth. He felt the warm trickle of blood from his lips. He had intended to tell the woman to let Malone know but could not speak.
Malone struck Mrs Cartier a savage blow on the right cheek, another on the left, a third and a fourth. Her head rocked from side to side, she would have fallen but for the rain of blows. Her hair spilled out from its elaborate coiffure, drooped over her eyes and face and then about her shoulders.
Malone gripped a handful and tugged at it savagely, making her gasp with pain.
Roger clenched his hands, but the men held him fast.
Malone stepped back, and Mrs Cartier brushed the hair out of her eyes. She looked older, her cheeks were red and already swollen and there was a scratch on the lid of one of her eyes.
“Tell him !” Roger cried.
He was struck again, but half-heartedly. Malone threw a careless glance over his shoulder, then looked back at Mrs Cartier.
“The guy’s got sense,” he said. “Where’s that machine?”
“In the other room,” answered Mrs Cartier in a voice that Roger could hardly hear. She pointed an unsteady hand towards the library and then swayed back against a chair and slumped into it, burying her face in her hands.
Malone turned to the larger of the men by the door.
“Tell him,” he said. “Keep your peepers open.”
“Oke,” said the man. He turned and crossed the flat. Roger heard the opening of the door and at the same time realised how little noise had really been made. It was doubtful whether anyone in the adjoining flats would dream of anything out of the ordinary. The tape which meant so much lay on the floor, behind a table, where he had kicked it when he had first heard Malone’s voice. Before long they would start to look for it.
