She was sitting, half naked, astride a chair in front of the dressing-table, gazing across the back of the chair into the triple mirror. Her bare arms were folded along the tall back of the chair and her chin was resting on her arms. Her spine was arched, and there was arrogance in the set of her head and shoulders. The black string of her brassiere across the naked back, the tight black lace pants and the splay of her legs whipped at Bond’s senses.
The girl raised her eyes from looking at her face and inspected him in the mirror, briefly and coolly.
“I guess you’re the new help,” she said in a low, rather husky voice that made no commitment. “Take a seat and enjoy the music. Best light record ever made.”
Bond was amused. He obediently took the few steps to a deep armchair, moved it a little so that he could still see her through the doorway, and sat down.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” he said, taking out his case and putting a cigarette in his mouth.
“If that’s the way you want to die.”
Miss Case resumed the silent contemplation of her face in the mirror while the pianist played J’attendrai. Then it was the end of the record.
Indifferently she flexed her hips back off the chair and stood up. She half turned her head and the blonde hair that fell heavily to the base of her neck curved with the movement and caught the light.
“If you like it, turn it over,” she said carelessly. “Be with you in a moment.” She moved out of sight.
Bond walked over to the gramophone and picked up the record. It was George Feyer with rhythm accompaniment. He looked at the number and memorized it. It was Vox 500. He examined the other side and, skipping La Vie en Rose because it had memories for him, put the needle down at the beginning of Avril an Portugal.
Before he left the gramophone he pulled the blotter softly from under it and held it up to the standard lamp beside the writing-desk. He held it sideways under the light and glanced along it. It was unmarked. He shrugged his shoulders and slipped it back under the machine and walked back to his chair.
He thought that the music was appropriate to the girl. All the tunes seemed to belong to her. No wonder it was her favourite record. It had her brazen sexiness, the rough tang of her manner and the poignancy that had been in her eyes as they had looked moodily back at him out of the mirror.
Bond had had no picture in his mind of the Miss Case who was to shadow him to America. He had taken for granted that it would be some tough, well-used slattern with dead eyes-a hard, sullen woman who had ‘gone the route’ and whose body was no longer of any interest to the gang she worked for. This girl was tough all right, tough of manner, but whatever might be the history of her body, the skin had shone with life under the light.
What was her first name? Bond got up again and walked over to the gramophone. There was a Pan-American Airways label attached to the grip. It said Miss T. Case. T? Bond walked back to his chair. Teresa? Tess? Thelma? Trudy? Tilly? None of them seemed to fit. Surely not Trixie, or Tony or Tommy.
He was still playing with the problem when she appeared quietly in the doorway to the bedroom and stood with one elbow resting high up against the door-jamb and her head bent sideways on to her hand. She looked down at him reflectively.
Bond got unhurriedly to his feet and looked back at her.
She was dressed to go out except for her hat, a small black affair that swung from her free hand. She wore a smart black tailor-made over a deep olive-green shirt buttoned at the neck, golden-tan nylons and black square-toed crocodile shoes that looked very expensive. There was a slim gold wrist-watch on a black strap at one wrist and a heavy gold chain bracelet at the other. One large baguette-cut diamond flared on the third finger of her right hand and a flat pearl ear-ring in twisted gold showed on her right ear where the heavy pale gold hair fell away from it.