captain's section, drummed nervously on the neat stack of stationery.

He picked up me outside phone, dialed the first two numbers of the lunch' room, and replaced the receiver. This wasn't important enough to have Bascom come rushing back. If she waited until this time of night to write letters, she could wait a little longer. That's the way-. Bascom would look at it. That was the way he looked at it. She was just another guest, good for a two-bit tip, perhaps. So what was the hurry?

Dusty leaned over the counter, and looked up the expanse of lobby to the front entrance. He went out the door and waited in front of the counter.

Stationery at three in the morning. Not usual, but it wasn't extraordinary either. A guest couldn't sleep, so to pass the time, he or she wrote letters. It happened. Every few nights or so there'd be a room call for stationery. As for the way she'd talked over the phone, the was she'd acted that first night…

Well…

He shrugged and ended the silent argument. Why kid himself? She'd been interested in him from the beginning. Now, she'd worked herself up to the point of doing a little playing. And so long as she wasn't a spotter – and she wasn't – so long as he let her take all the initiative and he damned well would – it would be okay. No trouble. Not a chance of trouble. He'd never done anything like this before, and he never would again. Just this once.

Bascom came in the front door. Dusty signaled to him, jabbing a finger into the air. The room clerk nodded, and Dusty picked up the stationery and trotted off to the elevator.

At the tenth floor, he opened the door of the car and latched it back with a hook. He started down the long semidark corridor. There was a low whistle from behind him, then a:

'Hey, Dusty!'

Dusty turned. It was Tug Trowbridge, standing in the door of his suite in undershirt and trousers. Two men – the two he had met a few nights before – were with him.

'In a big hurry? How about running my friends downstairs?'

'Well' – Dusty hesitated – 'yes, sir,' he said. 'Glad to.' It had to be done. He couldn't leave them waiting indefinitely for an elevator.

He took them downstairs, said good night and went back to the tenth floor. He latched the door back quietly, and started down the hall again.

Slowly, then more slowly.

Now that he was here, rounding the corner of the corridor, approaching her door, standing in front of it – now, his nervousness, his sense of caution, returned. An uneasy premonition stirred in him, a feeling that once before he had done something like this with terrifying, soul-sickening results. There had been another woman, one who like this one was all woman, and he –

He shook himself, driving the memory deep down into its secret hiding place. It had never happened, nothing like this. There had been no other woman.

He raised his hand, tapped lightly on the door. He heard a soft, rustling sound, then, dimly, 'Dusty?'

'Yes.'

'Come in.'

He went in, let the door click shut behind him. He stood there a moment, his eyes still full of the light outside, seeing nothing in the pitch black darkness. His hand unclasped, and the stationery drifted to the floor.

She laughed softy. She murmured… a question, an invitation. He felt his way forward slowly, guided by the sound of her voice.

His knee bumped against the bed. A hand reached up out of the darkness. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and her arms fastened around his neck.

There was one savagely delightful moment as his mouth found hers, as he felt the cool-warm nakedness of her breasts. Then, suddenly, he was sick, shivering with sickness and fear. It was all wrong. It wasn't like it should have been.

Her mouth was covered with lipstick. He could taste its ugly flatness in his own mouth, feel the sticky smears upon his face and neck. And she wasn't naked. Only part of her was nude, and there the nakedness was not complete. It was as though her night clothes had been torn. It – She didn't speak. She was still clinging to him, smearing him, digging her nails into his face. She didn't speak, but there was a voice:

'Y-you filthy, sneaking little bastard! Yes, bastard, do you hear? We got you out of a foundling asylum! And God curse the day we… No, I won't tell him. I won't do that to him. But if you ever -'

He was almost motionless for, a moment, paralyzed by the unbearable voice. But it had never happened. It was only a bad dream. And this…

There was a roll of thunder. The drawn curtains whipped back in a sudden gust of wind, and lightning illuminated the room just for a second, but that was long enough for him to see:

The over-turned chairs. The upset lamp. The deliberate disorder. The night-gown, half ripped from her body. And the smeared red mouth, opened to scream. He hit her as hard as he could.

SEVEN

The next thirty minutes was a nightmare. A confused and hideous dream, the incidents of which piled terrifyingly, bewilderingly, one atop another. He was bent over her – pleading and apologizing – hysterically trying to bring her back to consciousness. Then, he was leaving her room, running blindly down the hall, bursting into Tug Trowbridge's suite. And Tug was gripping him by the shoulders, slapping him across the face, forcing him into a semi-calm coherence… 'So okay, kid. I'll try and square the dame some way. Now straighten up and beat it back downstairs. Before old Bascom sends out an alarm for you.'

He was washing his face, combing his hair, under Tug's supervision. He was in the elevator, then crossing a seemingly endless expanse of the lobby. With Bascom's eyes on him every step of the way. And at last – at last, immediately – he was facing Bascom across the marble counter.

Trying to explain the inexplicable.

'Bill! Answer me, Bill!'

'Y-yes, sir…?'

'What took you so long? What have you been doing up there in Miss Hillis' room?'

'I – I-'

It made no impression on him at the time: the fact that, illogically, Bascom knew where he had been. He was still too frightened, too conscience-stricken, to raise even a silent question.

'Bill!'

'N-nothing, sir. The – the window in her room was stuck. I had to pry it open for her. P-prop it open.'

'And that took you thirty minutes? Nonsense! What were you doing up there? What have you done to – to -'

Bascom's voice trailed away. Eyes fastened on Dusty's face, he picked up the telephone. Gave a room number to the operator.

Dusty would have run, then. He would have, but his legs refused to obey the frantic signaling of his mind. He could only stand, paralyzed, wait and listen as Bascom spoke into the phone.

'… uh, Miss Hillis? This is the night clerk. The bellboy tells me that you were having some trouble – that there was some trouble with your window, and… I see. You're all right – I mean, everything is taken care of, then? Thank you very much, and I hope I haven't disturbed you.'

He hung up the phone. Incredibly, he hung it up… without summoning the police or the house detective. And, seemingly, the nightmare began to draw to a close.

Dusty could breathe again. He could talk – and think – again.

Tug had squared the dame some way. He'd bought her off. Or, more likely, he'd frightened her away from whatever stunt she'd been attempting. Probably he'd been there in the room with her when Bascom called. Letting her know – making her believe – that she'd get her teeth slapped out if she pulled anything funny.

At any rate, everything was all right. A miracle had happened, and he was too grateful to inquire as to its creation or authenticity.

'I told you,' he said – he heard himself saying. 'What the hell did you think I was doing?'

Bascom frowned at him puzzledly. He gave him a long, level look, and at last turned back to his work on the transcript sheets.

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