Chapter 89
Margaret almost left it too late. Too busy gossiping with the dowager in the lobby, when she should have leapt on the opportunity as soon as it presented itself.
She waited impatiently in the lift while the attendant took them up. She’d asked for the second floor. But as soon as the doors opened she could see it wasn’t what she was looking for, so she made her apologies and asked for the third.
Margaret had spent a lot of time and energy trying to work out how to locate the room number of her go-between, the woman who’d sat behind her in the basement bar.
She’d known she was American from her accent.
Luckily for Margaret, it seemed there was only one American woman staying in the hotel.
But how could she track her to her room?
Cook had unwittingly provided the answer, walking into the lobby and dripping water on the marble floor. River water, unless Margaret was very much mistaken.
The trail of wet footsteps had led to the lift. It would be a relatively simple matter to follow them to the room. As long as they hadn’t dried out.
It took until the eighth floor, the lift attendant getting increasingly annoyed. Margaret wasn’t about to lose any sleep over the happiness of a man who, only a day earlier, had been content to let two young men attack her.
Margaret followed the trail of damp footprints along the eighth-floor corridor. The pattern in the carpet made it hard to see every footstep, but each time she thought she’d lost it, she saw another one further ahead.
The damp footsteps ran out at Room 814. Margaret walked further on, just to make sure, but 814 it was.
She put her head to the door and listened.
She could just make out the woman’s voice, muffled as if it was in an interior room.
The bathroom, most likely. If ever there was a man in need of a bath . . .