Dorothy Eden by Deadly Travellers Page B

closed door. But she was sure it had opened. That was what had woken her. Had someone come to the wrong room?
    Or had someone been walking about softly in here, and left hastily when she stirred?
    Fully awake, Kate sprang out of bed and hurried to the door. The corridor was empty. Somewhere she could hear voices speaking in rapid French, and on the ground floor she heard the lift gates shut. These were normal enough sounds in an hotel and nothing to get perturbed about.
    Funny. She had been sure something had aroused her. Perhaps it had been the door of the next room opening and closing. Anyway, here was the day almost gone, and she had not yet had more than the glimpse of Paris that she had got on the brief taxi journey from the Gare du Nord to the hotel. Lucian had brought her here. He had told her to get some rest, and, if his business permitted, he would telephone her before eight o’clock that evening. He had been very kind. He had seen her through that nightmare hour when she had been searching uselessly for Francesca. But there was no reason why he should go on being responsible for her. She had realized that in the slightly withdrawn quality of his voice when he said goodbye to her. As if an unexpected duty had been safely discharged.
    “Well, he had thought the whole thing a hoax, anyway. He still did not seem entirely to believe that there had ever been a child, in spite of her conversation with Mrs. Dix, and in spite of the doll, which could have belonged to one of the schoolchildren.
    Kate shrugged as philosophically as possible. After all, it could be Lucian who had been the ghost. He was even more transitory than Francesca. The only record she had of him was the sketch she had done on the menu card, and that was not particularly good. She took it out of her handbag to look at it again. His remarks about it were right, she thought, as she looked at the incomplete lines. He did look haggard and grim, like someone engaged in a losing battle or a lost cause. She would tear this up and forget it. And him.
    But this she could not quite bring herself to do. She left it lying on the dressing-table, and picked up the telephone to ask for a bath. Her exhaustion still clung to her, and it made her feel strangely sad and gloomy. She had made such a mess of her mission to Rome, and the thought of Francesca, an innocent seven-year-old, caught up in quarrels that were not hers, depressed her. The child should be having the normal fun and security one associated with childhood.
    However, a bath and fresh clothes, and then a quick excursion around Paris would take away her morbid feelings. The hotel was old-fashioned, and she was escorted, with ceremony, by an elderly porter with a towel draped over his arm, to the top floor where the bath was filled almost to overflowing with very hot water.
    In this she lingered longer than she had meant to. When she returned to her room she wondered if Lucian had been trying to get her on the telephone. But it was foolish to stay in on the chance of a call from a virtual stranger who by now was probably too busy with his own affairs to worry about her. She would go out for a brief sight-seeing tour while the daylight lasted.
    But it was a pity… His face remained persistently in her mind. That sketch—where was it? She thought she had left it on her dressing-table. She was positive she had. But it was not there.
    Neither did it seem to be anywhere else, not even in the wastepaper basket. Someone must have come in to tidy up the room.
    But nothing else had been touched. The bed was left rumpled from her long sleep. Her things were flung carelessly about. With a small stirring of uneasiness she remembered the real or fancied opening of her door as she awoke from sleep. Had someone wanted to come in then, but finding her there, gone away? It would be difficult to know whether or not anyone had searched her suitcase, for its contents were already untidy enough. Her handbag she had prudently