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‘Because you have to kill me now?’ I inquired.
‘No.’ Maybe I was mistaken, but I could have sworn his jaw tightened a little bit. ‘Because I cannot kill you, Mr Linton. Any man under the same suspicion you are under now I would simply challenge to a duel and shoot like the dog he is. However,’ he paused for a moment to take a breath, ‘that will not be possible in your case, since you are… not quite as male as I could wish.’
There! That was why I was not afraid.
‘You mean because I’m a girl,’ I pointed out. ‘Which means I am female, not male. You can say the word, you know. It’s not poisonous.’
‘Oh, but it is,’ he responded, coolly. ‘Poisonous to my reputation, and now to my interests. I must have that file, Mr Linton. However, you were right: I am a gentleman. And because of that unfortunate condition you conceal under your trousers, I, as a gentleman, can neither search you nor kill you to gain what I must have.’
Unfortunate condition? God, this fellow really needed his head examined!
‘Why are you so bloody convinced that it was me who stole your precious papers, anyway?’ I lashed out. ‘Why so determined to think that I am the guilty one? Why not some other member of your staff? The file could have been gone for days.’
‘No, it couldn’t,’ he replied curtly. ‘Because nobody had access to the files in the safe.’
‘Nobody else had another key? And what about the one you gave me?’
‘Why these pointless questions?’ he asked, shaking his head. ‘We both know that you are guilty! There is no duplicate key, and the one I gave you was in my own possession the entire time since last Wednesday when-’
Abruptly, his head-shaking ceased. His whole body froze.
‘Yes?’ I demanded. ‘When what?’
Slowly he came out of his paralysis and turned his head to face me directly. His dark eyes flashed as though a storm was raging in them. For one moment he looked so dangerous I actually took a step back.
But then I realized that for once, his anger was not directed at me. A word passed his lips like the hiss of a snake preparing to strike:
‘Simmons!’
Karim let out a low oath in a language I didn’t understand. But the way he said it, I didn’t have to know the words to know that it was a curse. He had obviously understood. I, on the contrary, was still completely in the dark.
‘Simmons?’ I echoed, making it a question.
He met my eyes with his deep, dark, blue-grey ones.
‘Yes. Simmons, Mr Linton. Simmons, my previous private secretary. Simmons, who disappeared a few days ago without any explanation. Simmons, the treacherous snake.’
With a few long strides Mr Ambrose was over at my desk and started rifling through my drawers. The wooden ones in the desk, I mean.
‘What are you doing?’ I demanded. ‘I th
ought your big bull already checked those.’
Karim threw me a look that signified about a ton of displeasure. Apparently he didn’t appreciate his new nickname. I made a mental note to use it again at the earliest opportunity.
‘Karim did search the drawers,’ Mr Ambrose agreed. ‘But he searched them for the missing file, not for a sign of where the traitor who has taken the file might have gone. This was his desk once.’
‘So you think that this Simmons did it now? You no longer think it was me?’
‘No! I was a fool to ever have thought it. After all, you’re only…’ He waved his hand non-committally.
‘A girl?’ I piped up. ‘Is that what you were going to say? We females can steal things just as well as any man, thank you very much!’
‘A moment ago you were afraid of me thinking you’re guilty, and now you praise your skills as a thief?’
‘Not my skills, but the skills of womanhood in general! And I was certainly not afraid.’
‘You were not?’
