The Guilty Are Afraid

I moved across the room and came to rest before the model of a matador with his cape extended and his sword in his hand. I moved slowly around it while I watched Donaghue out of the corner of my eye as he came to an abrupt stop at the sight of me.

He was as nervous as a flustered hen. He took two quick steps back towards the doorway through which he had come, changed his mind and came forward with a little rush, paused again to look at me, then took three steps sideways. I could see he couldn’t make up his mind whether to run or stay.

I said to Miss Maddox, “Would this item be a little less expensive?”

“That is three thousand, five hundred dollars,” she said, not even bothering to look at me.

Donaghue started off across the room towards the redhead, who watched him come, her face expressionless. I moved on to a group of children that was even better than the matador.

Donaghue paused beside the redhead, fumbled in his pocket, took something from it and showed it to her. I saw something small and red in his hand. I didn’t have to be a detective to guess it was a Musketeer Club match-folder.

The redhead pulled aside the curtain and Donaghue disappeared through the doorway. I caught a glimpse of a passage before the curtain fell into place.

I began to move around the room, looking for something that was small and modest, but there wasn’t anything. I felt the blonde and the redhead were watching me. I finally came to rest before a model of a poodle, again executed with the same brilliance of the other models. This put me near the curtained door where the redhead was sitting. I took my time while I examined the poodle.

After five minutes or so, Miss Maddox said, with an edge to her voice, “That is seventeen hundred dollars.”

“As cheap as that?” I said, smiling at her. “It’s almost alive, isn’t it? I must think about it. Seventeen hundred dollars: almost giving it away, isn’t it?”

She pursed her lips and stared at me, her eyes now plainly hostile.

The curtain pulled aside and Donaghue slipped out. He gave me a startled stare, his eyes bulging, then he scuttled across the floor and out through the other doorway.

I decided I couldn’t continue to hang around like a heist man casing a joint. I told myself I’d better see what the match-folder I had found in Margot’s bag would buy me. I hoped it wouldn’t buy me trouble.

I looked over at the redhead and caught her staring at me. I gave her a toothy smile and advanced on her. She watched me come suspiciously. I dipped my fingers into my trousers pocket and let her see the match-folder. Her mouth tightened, and she looked over at Miss Maddox with an exasperated expression on her face as she leaned forward and pulled the curtain aside.

“Thanks,” I said. “I just wanted to be sure no one was watching me.”

Her blank, frozen stare told me I had said the wrong thing, but as she still held the curtain aside I didn’t try to make matters worse or better. I stepped through the doorway and entered a long passage, lit by strip lighting and decorated in wine red and blue.

I moved cautiously down the passage. The something inside me that works overtime when I am heading for trouble began to nudge me, starting an alarm bell going in my mind. I wished now I had brought a gun with me.

At the end of the passage, facing me, was a door. It had a cutaway panel in it which was closed, a shelf and a bell push. On the shelf was one of Marcus Hahn’s lesser works: a large pink and green earthenware bowl.

Moving soundlessly on my crepe soles I reached the door and peered into the bowl. Lying in the bottom of it were about a dozen red paper matches. They were the companions of the matches I had in my folder. Each one of them had a row of ciphers printed on them; each one had been torn from a match-folder and all the heads had been burned. The matches had been struck alight, and then immediately extinguished.

I felt this was probably an important discovery if I knew what it meant. I looked over my shoulder. At the far end of the passage the curtain hung in place: neither the redhead nor Miss Maddox were peeping at me.

I decided not to press my luck further. I was tempted to ring the bell on the door to see what happened, but as I wasn’t equipped for trouble at this moment, I decided against it. At least I had found out that there was a definite hookup between the Musketeer Club and Marcus Hahn’s so-called Treasure House. People paid out big money for a folder of matches to Cordez, then came here and parted with a match at a time: for what?

I turned around and went very quietly back down the passage. I pulled aside the curtain and stepped out, trying to look as flustered and as guilty as Donaghue had done.

The redhead was using a buffer on her nails. She didn’t bother to look up as I passed her. I walked into the outer room.

The party of tourists were through spending their money now. They were being herded towards the exit, most of them carrying neatly packed parcels.