Out in the foyer, the woman on the desk called after him.
“Mr. Strauss?” It was the English rose. She showed no sign of wilting, despite the hour. “Did you find Mr. Toy?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Oh, that’s odd. He was here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. He came with Mr. Mamoulian. I told him you were here, and that you’d asked after him.”
“And what did he say?”
“Nothing,” the girl replied. “Not a word.” She dropped her voice. “Is he well? I mean, he looked really terrible, if you don’t mind me saying so. Awful color.”
Marty glanced up the stairs, scanned the landing.
“Is he still here?”
“Well, I haven’t been on the desk all evening, but I didn’t see him leave.”
Marty took the stairs two at a time. He wanted to see Toy so much. There were questions to ask, confidences to exchange. He scoured the rooms, looking for that worn-leather face. But though Mamoulian was still there, sipping his water, Toy was not with him. Nor was he to be found in any of the bars. He had clearly come and gone. Disappointed, Marty went back downstairs, thanked the girl for her help, tipped her well, and left.
It was only when he had put a good distance between himself and the Academy, walking in the middle of the road to waylay the first available taxi, that he remembered the sobbing in the bathroom. His pace slowed. Eventually he stopped in the street, his head echoing to the thump of his heart. Was it just hindsight, or had that ragged voice sounded familiar, as it chewed on its grief? Had it been Toy sitting there in the questionable privacy of a toilet stall, crying like a lost child?
Dreamily, Marty glanced back the way he’d come. If he suspected Toy was still at the club, shouldn’t he go back and find out? But his head was making unpleasant connections. The woman at the Pimlico number whose voice was too horrid to listen to; the desk-girl’s question: “Is he well?”; the profundity of despair he had heard from behind the locked door. No, he couldn’t go back. Nothing, not even the promise of a faultless system to beat every table in the house, would induce him to return. There was, after all, such a thing as reasonable doubt; and on occasion it could be a balm without equal.