"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 173 - Once Over Lightly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

same dumb look on my face.”

She said that didn't make sense, and she didn't want to hear any more about it. She handed the
strongbox—she kept the piece of jewelry and Waldo's letter—back to the hotel employee.

She was really angry with me. She didn't say where she was going. She just marched off, jamming the
document in her purse, then carrying the purse clamped with both hands. I followed. Glacia was going
back to our room, apparently, but she passed up the elevator and took the stairs. She did that to torment
me, I imagined—I do not like stairsteps, because I go up and down them awkwardly and with a certain
fear, having fallen twice and been injured while on a stairway. It isn't a phobia. I just avoid stairs
whenever possible, and have done so since childhood. Following Glacia up them now, I wondered if she
had chosen the steps deliberately to provoke me. It was not above her to do so.

On the other hand, Glacia, who was wiry and alert and objective, expressed her emotion with action.
She was the kind of a person who walked off her troubles. Her answer, when someone else was feeling
under the weather, was: “What you need is some exercise!” One of those people. She might be merely
climbing the stairs because she was upset.
Possibly it wasn't important. Certainly there were bigger things to do my thinking about. There was
murder, my boss hiding things from me, and there was Keeper.

“Race horse,” I said.

“What?” Glacia asked.

“Keeper. Maybe Keeper is a race horse. We could get one of those turf annuals or magazines and look
in it for a horse with that name.”

Glacia didn't say anything.

It seemed to me there was quite a time when she didn't say anything. A long time. I got the idea it might
be fifteen minutes or so.

“Well?” I said.

Glacia still didn't say anything.

“Well, could Keeper be a race horse?” I asked.

I didn't see Glacia, and she didn't answer. I looked around for her. I looked hard. All I could see was the
ceiling.

“Well, could it?” I said. Then I said, “Well?” a couple more times. After that, I gave the word-making a
rest.

Things were very odd. All that was up there was the ceiling. I seemed to be lying on my back on
something, evidently a floor.



Chapter V