"How many times do I have to go through this?"
"One more," Scott told his partner. "Look, I'm every bit as tired of hearing this as you are of talking about it."
"Wanna bet?" The tennis player turned from their hotel room window and took a deep breath. "All right. She asked me to meet her at nine a.m. I did that."
"Anyone know about it besides us?"
"Obviously." A few seconds later, Kelly re-thought his tone of voice, and his next words came out minus the fangs. "The door was ajar when I got upstairs. I called her name; nobody answered. I went inside, and there she was. I called you. You showed up. We swept the place, left, and called the cops. And everyone lived happily ever after."
It was consistent, if nothing else – consistently depressing. A good agent was dead, and they didn't have one decent lead. That was quite bad enough – but even worse was the knowledge that if one agent had been burned, that could well mean more soon would be. Including themselves.
Regina had been working to arrange a meeting between 'their side' and a reclusive scientist by the name of Jacques LeFond, who had yet to declare an allegiance to any particular faction. This specific gentleman was on everyone's A-list, however, by virtue of the fact that he had recently developed a handy device that under certain conditions rendered radar systems useless. Needless to say, one or two other parties were interested in getting to know Dr. LeFond. Regina had been a valuable go-between, and her death created a major blind spot in their assignment.
"So we don't know who killed her. We also don't know when or where we're supposed to hook up with this guy LeFond. Not to mention that we don't even know where LeFond is." Alexander Scott ticked off their numerous problems with remarkable grace under pressure.
"We do know one thing," Kelly reminded him.
"What's that?"
"Things can only improve."
"Thank you, Pollyanna."
Kelly managed a half-hearted grin, the secret agent's best friend, as he went to answer a knock on the door. "I got it."
"You sure about that?"
"I know how to answer a door."
The two gendarmes standing in the hallway weren't smiling. "You're right, Scotty, it's for you." Kelly stepped aside so Scott could operate – the Rhodes Scholar was a linguist with a command of more languages than Kelly cared to count. "I can sense that your remarkable diplomatic talents are called for in this instance."
"You can sense that you don't remember six words of high school French," Scott parried.
"In point of fact, I do. However, they are not six words these gentlemen would be inclined to respond to in a favorable manner. Trust me."
"You flatter yourself."
However, Scott barely got bonjour out of his mouth before the gendarmes waved him aside. "Not necessary, monsieur," one of them told him. "We speak English quite well."
"Better than Kelly's French, for sure," Scott affirmed. "What can we do for you gentlemen?"
They returned his casual manner with cool indifference. "We wish to speak to Monsieur Robinson regarding his association with Mademoiselle Regina Spenser."
Of course, they'd known this was coming. The tournament had been well-publicized, and it was only a matter of time before the constabulatory showed up to find out what Kelly was to Regina. He'd had time to put together a few innocuous answers to anticipated questions, making it a little easier to feign complete surprise when they would 'inform' him of her death in a minute. "Don't tell me Reggie's in hot water with the cops," Kelly said. "If I told her once, I told her a thousand times, don't tear up parking tickets."
"This is considerably more serious, monsieur," one officer replied, his tone implying he had little or no patience with flip American athletes. "Mademoiselle Spenser was found dead this morning in her room at l'Hôtel Roi-Soleil."
This was Kelly's big moment, and he played it. Even Scott was impressed by the expression of shock he manifested. "What…?" he asked, looking from the inspector's face to Scotty's and back again. "There's got to be some mistake…"
"No mistake, monsieur. I have just come from the hotel. Mademoiselle Spenser was murdered last night."
"Well, the least you could do is break it to a guy gently," Scott protested. "You must know Kelly and Regina were friends. You fellas always bust in with bad news like Jimmy Cagney in a bad gangster flick?"
A curt shake of the head. "No, monsieur, this is not the way we normally inform a victim's associates of a death. It is the way we begin our interrogation of a suspect."
"Suspect?" This time, Kelly's shock wasn't manufactured. "You think I had something to do with it?"
"That is what I said."
"Yeah, man, I know that's what you said, but…" What had they missed? What had led the police to make this kind of accusation? "You mind tellin' me why?"
"I would prefer to ask the questions."
"And I would prefer not to be a suspect in a murder," Kelly shot back. "Seems I don't have a lot of say in the matter, though."
"Cool it, Kel," Scotty advised. "They're just doing their job."
But he was troubled, too. They'd swept Regina's room. This wasn't supposed to happen. They'd been too careful. What had gone wrong?
00o00
"It seems fairly obvious," was Emma Peel's typically candid assessment of the situation. She stepped aside so the coroner's aides could remove the stretcher bearing the body of Regina Spenser. "You say Mr. Robinson was seen entering Miss Spenser's room?"
The young bellman, looking oddly pallid at the sight of the retreating stretcher and its burden, swallowed hard and nodded. "Oui, madame. This morning. I was delivering a tray to this floor. I saw him."
"And you're certain it was Mr. Robinson?" Steed inquired.
"Oui, monsieur."
The photograph of Robinson and Spenser on the front page of the morning newspaper had come in handy. Not only did the bellman recall seeing Robinson, but also the clerk at the front desk had told of seeing the two of them together in the dining room the evening before. "Robinson's got quite a reputation," Mrs. Peel mused.
"Tennis?" Steed asked.
"That, too. I was thinking more in terms of considering himself somewhat the ladies' man."
"Indeed. As you say, it seems fairly obvious."
"Apparently the gendarmes feel similarly." Still, she didn't sound quite satisfied. "A crime of passion?"
"Possibly." Her companion continued to peruse the suite in search of anything that might have been missed. "Spenser was one of our best. I'd like to think she'd be immune to that sort of thing… dubious American charms, and all that. She had a job to do."
"Now we'll never know if she completed it." Mrs. Peel turned to face him. "We'll never know if she made contact with Dr. LeFond."
"Best we try to find out."
"Where do you suggest we begin?"
"Would you like to talk to Robinson?"
She frowned slightly. "Not particularly."
"A disagreeable job, Mrs. Peel," Steed nodded in agreement. "However… someone's got to do it."