But thank you just the same.”

I went back to my own room. After I’d showered and changed into gray flannel slacks and a light sports shirt, I sat down in front of the air-conditioner with a cigarette and went back over the whole thing from the time I’d noticed she was eavesdropping. She’d looked me over and dropped me. Why? And what had she really wanted? An adventure, an interlude, a break? Whatever it was, I’d failed to measure up somewhere. Well, you couldn’t win ’em all. The phone rang.

“I’m just stirring some Martinis,” she said warmly. “Why don’t you come over, Mr. Hamilton, and have one with me to celebrate your sailfish?”

You never know, I thought; maybe that’s why they’re so fascinating. “Love to,” I said. I dropped the phone back in the cradle and was out the door in two strides.

I knocked on No. 17, and stepped inside. She’d changed into a pleated black skirt and white blouse, and was very smart and very, very attractive from the sling pumps to the sleek dark head. There was a bucket of ice on the glass top of the dresser, and she was stirring Martinis in a pitcher.

She turned and smiled. “Do sit down, Mr. Forbes.”

Two

The way she said it told me there was no point in trying to bluff. I stepped inside and closed the door. Her room was exactly the same as mine, furnished with a brown carpet and curtains, twin beds with yellow spreads, a dresser, and a glass-covered desk at the right of the door. The telephone was located on the desk, and beside it— almost under my hand—were two sheets of motel stationery covered with the slashes and pot-hooks of shorthand. Two names were spelled out in the message; one of them was Murray, and the other Forbes.

I glanced up at her. “You just got this?”

She nodded coolly, and poured the Martinis. “Just a few minutes ago.”

“But you knew who I was all the time? You practically told me there in the bar.”

She smiled. “I couldn’t resist it; you were so insufferably smug. And I wanted to see how you’d react.”

“Are you from the police?”

“Of course not,” she said. She handed me the Martini, and picked up her own. “Here’s to your sailfish. Or should we drink to Mr. Murray’s durability, or the high cost of extradition?”

“What about Murray?” I demanded.

“Haven’t you heard?”

“How could I? I was afraid to call anybody on the Coast. And there was no mention of it in the papers I could get.”

“Then you were still afraid you’d killed him?”

I took a sip of the drink; I needed it. “No. I assumed he was tougher than that.