The Sphinx Read Online Free PDF

bathroom, with its serried ranks of expensive bottles of
aftershave, and switched on the light over the wash-basin mirror. Then he stuck
his tongue out and inspected it.
    The strange
thing was that the scarlet wounds were so few and far between. A normal human
bite is even and crescent-shaped, but this one consisted of only four distinct
marks. Gene touched them gently, and winced. It was almost as if he had been
bitten on the tongue by a large dog.
    He stood in front of the mirror a long time, and when, the
phone rang he jumped hi nervous surprise.

Two
    I t was Walter Farlowe, his boss. He wanted to remind Gene that
there was an eleven o’clock meeting the following day to discuss the West
Indies negotiations, and that he expected Gene’s punctual attendance. Gene said
he had everything ready, and that everything, was fine.
    “Do you have a
head cold?” asked Walter.
    “Do I sound as
if I do?”
    “I don’t know.
You sound funny. Like your mouth is full of bread roll or something.”
    “Oh, that,”
said Gene. “I bit my tongue by mistake.”
    Walter
chuckled. “You bit your tongue? I wish Henry Ness would.”
    “I wish Henry
would bite his whole goddamned head off.”
    After putting
the phone down, Gene poured himself another drink and sat down to think some
more. All his political life, he had made his mark by being the kind of man who
finishes everything he sets out to do. Every 51e, every report, every incident
was carefully documented, detailed, and closed. Loose ends disturbed him, and
that was exactly what this business with Lorie Semple had turned out to be.
Apart from that, his pride had taken its biggest beating in twenty years. Not
only had a busty nineteen-ye.ar-old virgin bitten his tongue, but she’d set her
watchdogs on him and made him leave one of his $75 English shoes stuck in a
goddamn gate.
    He groped
around for his telephone book and looked up the Semples. As he expected, they
weren’t listed. He stood there tapping his glass thoughtfully against his front
teeth for a while, and then he picked up the phone and dialed a number. After
all, he thought, it’s only just past midnight, and not many young ladies in
Washington go to bed this early to sleep.
    The phone rang
ten or eleven times before it was answered. A dozy girl’s voice said, “Hello?
    Who is this?”
    “Maggie,” said
Gene, as brightly as he could manage. “It’s me, Gene.”
    “What’s the
time?”
    “Oh, I don’t
know. Around twelve I guess.”
    “You don’t
know? I buy you a three-hundred-dollar Jaeger-le-Coultre and you don’t know?”
    “Don’t get
sore. You weren’t asleep, were you?”
    Maggie let out
a long, patient sigh. “No, Gene, I wasn’t asleep. How could any girl keep a job
as your private secretary if she ever slept? I am awake, twenty four hours of
the day. It’s just that some of the time I’m a little less awake than the rest
of the time.”
    Gene listened
patiently. “Maggie,” he said. “I know this is kind of an imposition, but I was
wondering if you could do me a small favor.”
    “That’s what
you always say. Gene, it’s my night off! Just for once, can’t a girl get some
of that rest that makes her beautiful?”
    “Maggie, you’re
always beautiful, rested or exhausted.”
    “Don’t give me
that. What do you want me to do?”
    “Do you
remember a French diplomat called Jean Semple? He died about three months ago
in Canada or someplace.”
    “That’s right.
He was mauled by bears on a hunting trip.”
    “Well, what do
you know about his background? His family? Particularly his house?”
    “Nothing at
all. Why?”
    Gene picked up
the phone and walked over to the couch. On the color TV screen, some moth-eaten
monsters were rising from their graves, and a bunch of terrified people were
running away, waving their arms in the air, and mouthing silently. Mozart
continued to play calmly in the background.
    “I met Semple’s
daughter tonight, ‘round at the Schirra’s. She was