She wrote hastily, folded the note, scrawled MR. MICHAEL RADLEY on the back. The night-clerk crisply rang a bell, bowed in response to her thanks, and went about his business.
Shortly, a yawning and sour-faced little page appeared and placed her note on a cork-topped salver.
Sybil trailed anxiously behind as he trudged to the smoking-room. "It is for the General's personal secretary," she said.
" 'Tis awright, miss, I know 'im." He heaved one-handed at the smoking-room door. As it opened, and the page passed through, Sybil peered in. As the door slowly closed, she had a long glimpse of Houston, bare-headed, shiny-faced, and sweaty-drunk, with one booted foot propped on the table, beside a cut-glass decanter. He had a wicked-looking jackknife in his hand, and was puffing smoke and jabbing at somethingwhittling, that was it, for the floor around his leather chair was littered with wood-shavings.
A tall bearded Englishman murmured something to Houston. The stranger had his left arm caught in a white silk sling, and looked sad-eyed and dignified and important. Mick stood at his side, bending at the waist to light the man's cheroot. Sybil saw him rasping at a steel sparker, on the end of a dangling rubber gas-tube, and then the door shut.
Sybil sat on a chaise-longue in the echoing marble lobby, warmth stealing through her damp, grimy shoes; her toes began to ache. Then the page emerged with Mick on his heels, Mick smiling back into the smoking-room and sketching out a cheery half-salute. Sybil rose from her seat. Seeing her there, his narrow face went bleak.
He came to her quickly, took her elbow. "Bloody Christ," he muttered, "what kind of silly note was that? Can't you make sense, girl?"
"What is it?" she pleaded. "Why didn't you come for me?"
"Bit of a contretemps. I'm afraid. Case of the fox biting his own arse. Might be funny if it weren't so bleeding difficult. But having you here now may change matters "
"What's gone wrong? Who's that gentry cove with the gammy arm?"
"Bloody British diplomat as doesn't care for the General's plan to raise an army in Mexico. Never you mind him. Tomorrow we'll be in France, and he'll be here in London, annoyin' someone else. At least I hope so The General's queered things for us, though. Drunk as a lord and he's pulled one of his funny little tricks He's a nasty bastard when he drinks, truth to tell. Starts to forget his friends."
"He's gulled you somehow," Sybil realized. "He wants to cut you loose, is that it?"
"He's nicked my kino-cards," Mick said.
"But I mailed them to Paris, poste restante" Sybil said. "Just as you told me to do."
"Not those, you goosethe kino-cards from the speech!"
"Your theatre cards? He stole 'em?"
"He knew I had to pack my cards, take 'em along with me, don't you see? So he kept a watch on me somehow, and now he's nicked 'em from my baggage. Says he won't need me in France after all, so long as he's got my information. He'll hire some onion-eater can run a kino on the cheap. Or so he says."
"But that's theft!"
" 'Borrowing,' according to him. Says he'll give me back my cards, as soon as he's had 'em copied. That way I don't lose nothin', you see?"
Sybil felt dazed. Was he teasing her? "But isn't that stealing, somehow?"
"Try arguing that with Samuel bloody Houston! He stole a whole damn country once, stole it clean and picked it to the bone!"
"But you're his man! You can't let him steal from you."
Mick cut her off. "When it comes to thatyou might well ask how I had that fancy
French program made. You might say I borrowed the General's money for it, so to speak." He showed his teeth in a grin. "Not the first time we've tried such a stunt on one another. It's a bit of a test, don't you see? Fellow has to be a right out-and-outer, to travel with General Houston "
"Oh Lord," Sybil said, collapsing into her crinoline on the chaise. "Mick, if you but knew what I've been thinking"
"Brace up, then!" He hauled her to her feet. "I need those cards and they're in his room. You're going to find them for me, and nick 'em back. And I'm going back in there and brass it out, cool as ice." He laughed. "The old bastard mightn't have tried this, if not for my tricks at his lecture. You an' Corny Simms made him feel he was right and fly, pulling strings! But we'll make a pigeon of him yet, you and I, together "
"I'm afraid, Mick," Sybil said. "I don't know how to steal things!"
"You little goose, of course you do," Mick said.
"Well, will you come with me and help, then?"
"Of course not! He'd know then, wouldn't he? I told him you were a newspaper friend of mine. If I stay too long talking, he'll smell a rat sure." He glared at her.
"All right," Sybil said, defeated. "Give me the key to his room."
Mick grunted. "Key? I haven't any bloody key."
A wash of relief went through her. "Well, then. I'm not a cracksman, you know!"
"Keep your voice down, else you'll tell everyone in Grand's" His eyes glinted furiously. He was drunk, Sybil realized. She'd never seen Mick really drunk before, and now he was lushed, lightning-struck. It didn't show in his voice or his walk, but he was crazy and bold with it. "I'll get you a key. Go to that counter-man, blarney him. Keep him busy. And don't look at me." He gave her half a shove. "Go!"