She said: "Very well." She sighed. "Is there going to be a little excitement?"
O'Mara said: "Plenty."
"I am glad," she said. "I was getting a little bored."
O'Mara said: "I'm sorry to hear that. Perhaps your guests bore you."
She said: "Not at all. On the contrary—only the situation. In fact I was thinking——" She hesitated.
O'Mara asked: "What were you thinking?"
She said airily: "I was thinking that if the situation progressed a little, possibly my guests—as you call them—might be more amusing. Au revoir."
O'Mara hung up. He sat in the dusty office, smoking a cigarette, thinking of Rozanski, trying to visualise what he looked like.
IT WAS TEN-THIRTY. Guelvada, leaning against the wall opposite the stage door of the little theatre in Saint Lys, watched Ernestine as she tripped alon
