76 
Ramsay’s Fury

Notwithstanding that they too would be parting in another couple of hours, Ramsay and Adriane entered their suite leisurely and in bright spirits.

Ramsay took off his coat, tossed it over a chair, sat down on the couch, and opened the newspaper he had brought up from the lobby. He did not notice anything amiss until twenty or thirty minutes later as he began thinking about his own preparations to leave.

Chatting with Adriane, he walked to his bureau to gather up his personal things. There, on top of his own wallet, sat a very strange, yet somehow familiar-looking, red beret. He looked at it, momentarily confused. Beside it, neatly folded, was a silk chartreuse scarf.

“Darling, this isn’t yours . . . ?” he began with a bewildered expression, reaching out and picking up the beret. “I’m sure I’ve seen it, but don’t recall—”

Suddenly he stopped. What was that paper beneath it . . . that oddly familiar handwriting!

“What the—” he exclaimed, throwing down the beret and grabbing up the single sheet of hotel stationery with the sinking feeling of having been duped.

Just a couple of little items to remember me by, Ramsay dear, he read. I won’t be needing them again now that they have served their purpose. At first I thought you recognized me, but the more I saw of you these last few days, the more I realized you had eyes only for another. Under the circumstances, I didn’t think you’d mind giving me a little money, especially in that it does not appear that providing for me is high among your concerns of the moment. Call it a sharing of assets between husband and wife. Give Adriane my regards, but don’t try to follow me. You couldn’t find me in Milan, and you won’t find me in Paris.

Even before he was finished, her name was again on his lips with nearly as much venom as it had been in Vienna.

Amanda! he shouted angrily as he now rifled through his things.

“My money!” he cried. “The minx has stolen every franc I had . . . and my passport is with them!”

“You can’t mean she was actually in our room,” said Adriane. “How could she have gotten in?”

Ramsay shook his head, spinning about in a rage, tearing through every drawer in the bureau.

“Must have been when we were at breakfast,” he said, gradually calming. “I can’t tell . . . she may have taken more too. I had some papers. . . .”

Even in the midst of his search, he felt almost a begrudging admiration for Amanda’s spunk.

“How did you do it, you shrew?” he said half to himself, sitting back down to take stock of the suddenly changed situation. “Barclay may have misjudged you, Amanda my dear. But I never did. Maybe I knew you had it in you all along.”

A thin smile broke across his lips, and he added silently to himself, “It’s too bad, Amanda. We might have had something together, you and me, if it wasn’t for your blasted English morality. Unfortunately, it’s too late for you now. You have gone too far this time . . . and now I shall have to kill you.”

“Where do you think she is?” asked Adriane. “Maybe she’s still in the hotel.”

“Oh no, she’s gone by now,” said Ramsay, the momentary smile disappearing from his face. “If I know Amanda, she is long gone.”

“Where, then?”

“On her way to England, no doubt. But I’ll be on the ship from Cherbourg this afternoon. Of course, she’ll expect that, and you can bet I won’t see her on board.”

“What about your passport?”

Ramsay smiled and pulled back his coat to reach inside its vest pocket.

“Fortunately,” he said, “I have duplicates.”

He paused and grew pensive. “I don’t know where she is at this moment,” he said. “But one thing is for certain. She’ll be back in London before the week’s out. And that’s where I will get my hands on her again. She may be feeling herself very clever after this little game with the scarf and the hat, prancing about under my nose. But she won’t outsmart me again.”