Kukushka had explained to Mouse that some in the hotel entertained the suspicion that the Roundsman worked for the Secret Police as an informant. That was a rumor that Mouse was all too ready to give credit to. The men and women of the Secret Police were hated in the entire Czardom because of their malice and cruelty. The idea that of all people Mouse’s archenemy should be one of these seemed to her to be so obvious, that she had sometimes wondered if she had not come to it by herself. A spy! Of course!
And this monstrosity of a man, this cunning traitor, had selected her for his personal favorite victim. Mouse, who had no other name than that; who had been born in this hotel and had not left since; who all called the Girl-Boy because her body was so thin and her hair was short stubble; of all people, she had drawn his wrath and his all-knowing eyes upon herself.
She was done for. Had she really thought that she could trick him by hiding her stolen good in a shoe?
She closed her eyes and waited for what would happen next.
The pressure of his hands on her upper arms eased. Right away the hope began to creep up on her that he would be gone like some kind of phantom when she opened her eyes.
But of course he was not gone. He stood there and stared at her. Completely motionless, his features so stiff as though they had been molded from clay.
“I’m watching you,” he whispered.
She nodded clumsily.
“And I always know what you’re doing.”
At that she was shaken by such a shudder that she instinctively whirled around and fled. She ran back around the corner, down the long, ice cold landing, and past the Czar’s Suite without throwing a second glance at the shoes. She could come back later and take them for cleaning.
The Roundsman stayed back behind the bend, but she could tell by his shadow that he still stood there, waiting, motionless. And perhaps it was only his shadow, and he himself was long gone somewhere else.
I’m watching you.
She took his word for it.
She swept around another corner, along wood-panelled walls, away under chandeliers, the diadems of glass stones clinking in the draft from her flight.
I always know what you’re doing.
She was wretched by the time she reached the elevator grate.
“Hello, Mouse!”
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