Free Decision at Delphi by Helen MacInnes

this after all the varied hotels he had stayed at. Even the flies looked as if they would be thoroughly tame here.
    He followed the boy carrying his luggage around the long stretch of sixteenth-century cloisters (the pillars were now glass-enclosed, the flagstones carpeted) to the front wing of the old monastery. The Dominicans in Taormina had given themselves plenty of room between the thick walls. The passages were broad. The cells, each with a monk’s name still painted above its carved door, now made comfortable bedrooms with whitewashed walls, dark massive furniture and—once he had opened the tall shutters—a view. He stood at a window which was framed by the shocking puce of bougainvillaea climbing over the front of the hotel. Below was a broad terrace, a long terrace, laid out with flowers and shrubs, benches and tables. There was enough room there, too, to please him. He might find a working corner, hidden behind that row of orange trees.
    He went out to investigate. The key to his room measured a foot. “The keys are left in the locks,” a quiet voice said behind him. “I am always on duty.” He looked at the maid who stepped out from the shadows of the broad corridor, her feet silent on the heavy carpet. “All right,” he said, and hoped it was all right. “I need another lamp, more light, more light for working at night. Another lamp. You understand?” She nodded. But he left, wondering.
    He found his way on to the terrace with only two mistaken turns. (This whole place was one vast stretch of museum pieces and unexpected doorways; a guest might be lost for days until a search party found him babbling by a seventeenth-century chest or a sixteenth-century wood carving.) The hill slope, on which the hotel was perched, dropped steeply to the sea far below. To his left, the little town spread along, a ledge cut into the hills. To his right, more falling hills; and Etna, towering.
    “It’s too much,” he told himself regretfully. There were palm trees and almond trees, and orange trees bearing both fruit and blossom, just to please everyone. And the flowers—spring and summer bloomed at the same time, it seemed Roses and hyacinths, violets, and geraniums and freesia. Too much, far too much. Back to your cell, Brother Kenneth, he told himself gloomily. He left the terrace, with a glance of pure envy at the guests who had nothing to do but enjoy it.
    There was no one in his corridor when he did find it again. Always on duty, was she? His door was ajar; the maid was inside, studying the labels on his suitcases. She looked more astounded by his quick return than by his silent entry.
    “The lights are good. I tested them,” she told him. She pointed to the bulb set into a wrought-iron decoration on the ceiling, and to the bed lamp.
    “Yes, they are good.” All twenty-five watts of them. “I need another light here. And here.” He pointed to the writing and dressing tables. “Okay?” She left, nodding. He still wondered.
    He turned the writing table away from the window so that he wouldn’t be distracted by the view. He pulled the dressing table nearer to his chair, and propped several of his sketches against its looking glass. Now, slave, back to your galley! But before he beganwork, he gave himself ten minutes with Steve’s photographs. (He would be going over them, in detail, with Kladas himself.) They were excellent. He looked across at his sketches, then back at the photographs. We’ll manage this job, he thought, we’ll manage it. With a feeling of purest pleasure, he began to work.
    But there was a discreet knock at the door, and a housekeeper entered with the maid. The housekeeper spoke English. “Your maid says you cannot make the lights work.” She switched them on and off. “See, it is very simple. This one is for the ceiling. That one is for the bed.”
    “I want one here, and here.” He pointed. “For this work.”
    “In daylight?” She frowned at the opened shutters which let