“Oh, damn!” she said in a tremulous voice that she had tried vainly to make sound annoyed.

She turned, locked the door behind her and began ascending the stairs. Her body was trembling from head to foot, and she had to force her reluctant feet to make each step.

A strong, nerve-tingling, aphrodisiacal scent of a French perfume preceded her.

The man at the top of the stairs drew back out of sight and waited.

When her foot touched the runner in the corridor, the man put his right forearm about her throat and his left elbow between her shoulder blades and lifted her from the floor, cutting off her wind.

She kicked and beat him futilely with her hands as he carried her down the corridor.

“Cut it out or I’ll break your neck,” he whispered thickly, blowing her perfumed hair out of his face.

She stopped fighting and began to squirm.

He stopped before the last door toward the front and kicked softly on the bottom panel.

The upper panel was frosted glass with the words:

Casper Holmes and Associates

Public Relations

spelled out in gold letters. But there was no light behind or in front, and the letters were a vague glittering.

The door opened inward abruptly. Nothing but the whites of the eyes of the man inside could be seen. The sound of Leila’s strangled breathing was loud in the pregnant silence.

“What you got?” a whisper asked.

“A woman—can’t you smell her?” the lookout whispered in reply, and stepped into Casper’s reception room, still holding her suspended by the neck.

“What is it?” a Mississippi voice asked from the other room.

“A woman,” the lookout repeated, unconsciously accenting the word.

Leila was rubbing herself seductively against him for all she was worth. Before arriving she had drenched herself in the aphrodisiacal perfume, and its scent, along with his own tongue swelling with lust, was choking him. Her trembling was setting him on fire. He lowered her to her feet and slackened his grip so she could breathe.

Suddenly a light came on in the private office, and the rectangle of a door appeared in the corner.

“Bring her in,” the voice ordered.

The lookout pushed Leila through the doorway; the other man followed.

Her eyes widened in abject terror, and she moaned.

The office was a shambles. Drawers hung open, papers littered the floor, the leather upholstery was slashed, spare clothes from the closet were torn into shreds, the safe in one corner stood open.

A heavy green shade covered the window opening onto the inside airwell, and Venetian blinds were closed tightly over the two front windows.

Street sounds came faintly, muffled by the snow. There was the soft sound of snow falling into the airwell and water running in the drainpipes. No other sounds came from inside. They had the building to themselves.

Casper lay on his back on the dark maroon rug; his legs were spread-eagled, with his ankles lashed to the legs of the desk with halves of an extension cord. He was stripped to his underwear. His arms were twisted behind him so that his hands extended above his shoulder blades and were manacled with a set of handcuffs looped across his throat. He was gagged with his own black silk scarf, tightly twisted and passing through his mouth to a knot behind his head. Blood trickled from his eyelids, seeped steadily from his huge, flaring nostrils, ran from the corners of his mouth and flowed down his cheeks alongside the scarf that gagged him.