“And the chairman—dancing. Didn’t he seem worried about his wife?”
“Didn’t seem to be. ‘Upset tummy’ was the word that went around. After all, he is a doctor, and ought to know. Besides, it was his duty to dance with all the girls.”
“Yes,” I said. “I know: democratic principles. Did he dance with you?”
“Yes. Twice, in fact.”
“Why?”
“How do I know, you idiot? Because I was the most beautiful girl in the room. Because he liked the smell of my Chanel. Because he likes tall girls. What a ridiculous question!”
I saw that I had struck pay dirt, but I kept a poker face.
“What did you talk about?”
“Oh, for god’s sake, de Luce … how do you expect me to remember that? It was years ago.”
“I’d have remembered,” I said. “I don’t often dance with a doctor. Or a man, for that matter.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It was just a thought. What did you talk about?”
“The weather. The heat. He said I waltzed well. He complimented me on my corsage.”
“Did he bid you farewell?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Fabian demanded.
“Did he wish you well in your new life?”
“Whatever are you talking about, de Luce? Are you insane?”
“Not entirely,” I said. “I thought he might at least have congratulated you on winning the Saint Michael Award … Clarissa.”
? TWENTY-NINE ?
I REACHED OUT AND ran my finger slowly down her cheek. It came away covered with pale powder. Underneath, her exposed skin was the same swarthy shade as that of her sister, Mary Jane.
“Makeup, hair color, and hairstyle can fool a lot of people,” I said, “but the underlying facial structure can never really be changed—not in the long run, anyway, and not to the professional eye.”
This was a fact I had learned from Dogger one rainy afternoon in the greenhouse as we pored over photographs of criminals in the back issues of The Police Gazette he had turned out from under the stairs. We had assumed (incorrectly, as it turned out) that they had belonged to Uncle Tar.
Nevertheless, Clarissa Brazenose’s transformation into Fabian had been remarkable, a triumph of the actor’s makeup box. Even now, with the light stain on my fingertip, there was only an inch of the real Clarissa showing through.
“You’ve managed to fool even your own sister,” I said. “You ought to be proud. You ought also to be ashamed. Poor kid, being made to think you were dead these past two years. She still doesn’t know, does she? And perhaps never will.”
Fabian stared at me, not quite defiantly. I had to give her credit.
“How did you manage?” I asked. “The makeup, of course, which you were taught to apply professionally. And you must have worn wigs, changed your posture, re-learned how to walk. I compliment you on a most remarkable performance.”
I reached out as if to touch her hair.
She backed slowly away out of reach.
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” Fabian said, as of course she would. She had been trained to deny even to the death.
And was I, at bottom, any different?
The truth of the matter was that I hadn’t the heart to expose her. If I revealed the fact that Fabian was Clarissa Brazenose, then, even though I had won, she had lost. All of her efforts, and those who had trained her, would be for naught.
The point of it all was this: Did I have the generosity to let her get away with it? Could I let her win? Throw the match, so to speak?
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I must have been mistaken.”
And before she could stop me, I ran out of the laboratory.
I did not need more entanglements.
It was only when I got back to Edith Cavell that I realized I had not completed my experiment. I would return later to clean up.
When Fabian was gone.