The bearded man pulled a knife from his pocket and Mallory backed away. The man grinned and rushed him. As the knife came up, Mallory grabbed for the wrist, twisting the arm up and out to one side, taut as a steel bar. The man screamed like a woman and dropped the knife. Mallory struck him a savage blow across the side of the neck with his forearm and he crumpled to the ground.
Anne Grant leaned against the wall, her face pale in the sickly yellow light, blood streaking one cheek from a deep scratch. She laughed shakily and brushed a tendril of dark hair from her forehead.
“You don’t do things by halves, do you?”
“What’s the point?” he said.
Her jersey suit was soiled and bedraggled, the blouse ripped to the waist. When she moved forward, she limped heavily on her right foot. She stopped to pick up her hand-bag and the bearded man groaned and rolled on his back.
She looked down at him for a moment, then turned to Mallory. “Are you going to call the police?”
“Do you want me to?”
“Not particularly.” She started to shake slightly. “Suddenly it seems colder.”
He slipped off his reefer jacket and hung it around her shoulders. “What you need is a drink. We’ll go back to the hotel. You can use my room while I get you a taxi.”
She nodded down at the bearded man. “Will he be all right?”
“His kind always are.”
He took her arm. They walked to the corner and turned into the street. It started to rain, a thin drizzle that beaded the iron railings like silver. There was a dull, aching pain in her ankle and the old houses floated in the fog, unreal and insubstantial, part of the dark dream from which she had yet to awaken, and the pavement seemed to move beneath her feet.
His arm was instantly around her, strong and reassuring, and she turned and smiled into the strange, pale face, the dark eyes. “I’ll be all right. A little dizzy, that’s all.”
The hotel sign swam out of the fog to meet them and they went through the entrance and mounted the rickety stairs. His room was at the end of the corridor and he opened the door, switched on the light and motioned her inside.
“Make yourself at home. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
The room had that strange, rather dead, atmosphere typi-cal of cheap hotels the world over. There was a strip of worn carpet on the floor, an iron bed, a cheap wardrobe and locker. The one touch of luxury was the washbasin in the corner by the window and she hobbled across to it.
Surprisingly, there was plenty of hot water and she washed her face and hands, then examined herself in the mirror that was screwed to the wall above the basin. The scratch on her cheek was only superficial, but her suit was ruined. Other-wise she seemed to have sustained no real damage. She was sitting on the edge of the bed examining her ankle when he returned.
He placed a half-bottle of brandy and two glasses on top of the bedside locker and dropped to one knee beside her. “Any damage?”
She shook her head. “A nasty graze, that’s all.”
He pulled a battered fibre suitcase from under the bed and took out a heavy fisherman’s sweater which he dropped into her lap. “You’d better put that on. You’re wet through.”
When she had pulled it over her head and rolled up the long sleeves, he rested her right foot on his knee and ban-daged the damaged ankle expertly with a folded handker-chief. She watched quietly.
He was of medium height, with broad shoulders, and wore the sort of clothes common to sailors. A cheap blue-flannel shirt and heavy working trousers in some dark material, held up by a broad leather belt with a brass buckle. But this was no ordinary man. He had a strange, hard enigmatic face, the face of a man few would care to trifle with. The skin was clear and bloodless; black, crisp hair in a point to the forehead. The eyes were the strangest feature, so dark that all light died in them.