This Way for a Shroud

Ferrari knew this was his first dangerous moment. If someone happened to be in the passage when he opened the elevator doors his plans might easily be ruined. It was a risk he had to take. In any plan, no matter how carefully thought out, there were always two or three unavoidable risks. They were risks Ferrari accepted, knowing that up to now his luck had been extraordinary. He saw no reason why his luck should desert him at this moment.

He didn't hesitate. As he pressed the button to open the doors, his hand slid inside his coat and closed on the butt of his gun.

The corridor was deserted.

He left the elevator, slid across the corridor and behind a curtain that screened one of the big windows overlooking the sea. The curtain had barely fallen into place when he heard someone coming, and he grinned to himself. His luck hadn't deserted him.

He peered through a chink in the curtain and nodded to himself.

A big burly man who had "cop' written all over him, came slowly along the corridor. He passed Ferrari's hiding-place and went on, disappearing around the bend of the corridor.

Ferrari immediately left his hiding-place, and walked swiftly in the opposite direction.

The long corridor stretched ahead of him, and after he had walked fifty yards or so, he again ducked behind a window curtain. He remained there, listening and watching.

A door opened suddenly a few yards from him, and a girl appeared. She was wearing a low-cut, off-the-shoulder evening gown, and Ferrari looked at her creamy neck and shoulders with an approving eye. She closed the door, but left the key in the lock. He watched her walk slowly to the elevator. She pressed the button and waited, humming under her breath.

The big cop came back along the corridor. He touched his hat to the girl who smiled brightly at him, and he went on, not looking back.

The elevator door opened and the girl entered the cage.

Ferrari waited.

After a few minutes the cop came back. He passed close to where Ferrari was

hiding, and once more disappeared around the bend in the corridor.

Ferrari stepped out from behind the curtains, crossed over to the door of the room the girl had just left, opened it softly and looked in.

The room was in darkness. He took out the key, stepped into the room, closed the door and shot the bolt. Then he snapped on the lights.

The bed had been turned down and the room was tidy, Ferrari decided the floor maid had already visited the room, and with any luck he wouldn't be disturbed for at least an hour. He turned out the light and went over to the window, drawing back the curtains.

The window overlooked the swimming-pool and the lawn. He could see the bright lights, the crowds still swimming or lounging around the pool while waiters in white jackets hurried to and fro carrying trays of drinks.

Frances's room, Ferrari knew, was at the back of the hotel, facing the sea. He knew, too, that all the windows on the tenth floor on that side of the hotel were guarded. To reach her window, he would have to climb up the roof, lower himself over the ridge and then climb down the other side.

It would be a dangerous and difficult climb, one of the most dangerous climbs he had ever undertaken, but it didn't worry him. He had studied the roof for a long time through a pair of powerful field glasses, and had decided on the route to take.

He pulled the curtain and sat on the window ledge and watched the crowd below. It wasn't dark enough to make an attempt just yet. In another half hour the darkness would hide him from anyone who happened to look up towards the roof.

He sat staring down at the lighted bathing-pool, his mind a blank, his muscles relaxed. The hands of his strap-watch crawled on and the sky slowly darkened. At a few minutes past nine o'clock he decided it was dark enough.

From under his coat he produced a long coil of silk rope that he had wound round and round his thin body. At one end of the rope was a rubber-covered hook, and at the other end a heavily padded ring.

He stepped out on to the window sill and looked up. Above him was the balcony of one of the bedrooms on the tenth floor. He tossed up the hook which caught in a stone projection and held.

He climbed up the rope as effortlessly and as quickly as a monkey runs up a tree. He reached the balcony, swung himself over the balustrade and dropped on to hands and knees.

He peered through the window into an empty room, then he looked over the balustrade and stood watching the activity below until he had satisfied himself no one from the ground had seen him.

He climbed up on to the balustrade and looked up at the perpendicular roof some twenty feet or so above him. A stout rain gutter ran the length of the roof, and he tossed up his hook again. The hook caught in the gutter, and he pulled, testing the gutter's strength. It neither bent nor creaked under his persistent pulling, and without more ado he launched himself into space and went swarming up the rope until his claw-like hands got a grip on the gutter.