DETECTIVE 2

For halfway across the room, a small automatic pistol in his hand stood a man.

Ausable blinked a few times.

“Max,” he wheezed, “you gave me quite a start. I thought you were in Berlin. What are you doing here in my room?”

Max was slender, a little less than tall, with features that suggested slightly the crafty, pointed countenance of a fox. There was about him —

aside from the gun — nothing especially menacing.

“The report,” he murmured. “The report that is being brought to you tonight concerning some new missiles. I thought I would take it from you. It will be safer in my hands than in yours.”

Ausable moved to an armchair and sat down heavily. “I’m going to raise the devil with the management this time, and you can bet on it,”

he said grimly. “This is the second time in a month that somebody has got into my room through that nuisance of a balcony!” Fowler’s eyes went to the single window of the room. It was an ordinary window, against which now the night was pressing blackly.

 “Balcony?” Max said, with a rising inflection. “No, a passkey. I did not know about the balcony. It might have saved me some trouble had I known.”

“It’s not my balcony,” Ausable said with extreme irritation. “It belongs to the next apartment.” He glanced explanatorily at Fowler. “You see,” he said, “this room used to be part of a large unit, and the next room — through that door there — used to be the living room. It had a balcony, which extends under my window now. You can get onto it from the empty room two doors down — and somebody did, last month. The management promised to block it off. But they haven’t.”

Max glanced at Fowler, who was standing stiffly not far from Ausable, and waved the gun with a commanding gesture. “Please sit down,” he said. “We have a wait of half an hour, I think.”

“Thirty-one minutes,” Ausable said moodily. “The appointment was for twelve-thirty. I wish I knew how you learned about the report, Max.”

The little spy smiled evilly. “And we wish we knew how your people got the report. But no harm has been done. I will get it back tonight.

What is that? Who is at the door?”

Fowler jumped at the sudden knocking at the door. Ausable just smiled. “That will be the police,” he said. “I thought that such an important paper as the one we are waiting for should have a little extra protection. I told them to check on me to make sure everything was all right.”

Max bit his lip nervously. The knocking was repeated.

“What will you do now, Max?” Ausable asked. “If I do not answer the door, they will enter anyway. The door is unlocked. And they will not hesitate to shoot.”

Max’s face was black with anger as he backed swiftly towards the window.

What happened after it? Why did he see through the window?