The door creaks open. The guard scrambles to his feet.
A slim blond man enters, dressed in a dark suit, flanked by a man in a police uniform with a thick band strangling his arm. He bites out a command to the guard, who falls back into his chair with a bang.
“Now then.” The blond man turns to the table and smiles. “Edward and Sylvia Brown, is it?” He speaks in perfect King’s English.
“Yes, and I demand to know why my wife and I have been detained in this manner.” Lionel sets his fist on the table.
“Tush, tush. You Americans.” The blond man smiles. “The thing is, though, you remind me very much of a young man I knew at Oxford, when I studied there. A man named Richardson. Merton College.”
“Richardson?” Lionel screws up his face. “I knew a fellow named Richardson at school. Two of them. Common name, Richardson.”
“You come from Berlin, Mr. Brown?”
“We come from New York City.”
A patient smile. “I mean most recently. You were in Berlin? So states your passport.”
“Yes, yes. Seeing the sights. My wife and I are on our honeymoon.” Lionel reaches over to pat Violet’s hand. “Tour of Europe, except it seems you’ve got plans of your own this summer. I was just about to take Sylvie to see the—”
“Now, see here,” says Jane, “if you’re here to question Mr. Brown, why have I been stopped here with my son?”
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. . . .” The blond man’s gaze drops to the papers before him. “Oh, I do beg your pardon. Madame de Saint-Honoré, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. And I’ll have you know—”
“Do you not think, madame, it’s a precarious time for a French citizen to be touring about Germany?”
“I was in Berlin for the summer. My son was studying there. Anyway, one little French husband doesn’t make you a citizen forever, does it? So what’s this about?”
“Yes,” says Lionel, “either state your business or let us go, or I’ll have the American consulate . . .”
The blond man waves his hand. “I shall be brief, then. My dear Madame de Saint-Honoré, I ask your pardon for the frank nature of this question, but I am afraid I must make the inquiry, for form’s sake: When you murdered one Walter Grant, a British subject residing in Berlin, did you commit the act on your own initiative, or did you obtain the assistance of an accomplice?”
Vivian
I let James walk me to the door of the Imperial suite after a late dinner. “I don’t even know your real name,” I said, with my hand on the very knob, my voice merry with wine.
“Nor will you.”
“You can’t give me a hint?”
He angles his head thoughtfully. “My mother’s mother was a Merriwether.”
“Merriwether.” I put on my deep voice. “James Merriwether.”
He laughed, nice and throaty. I watched his Adam’s apple bob pleasantly up and down. A lovely rugged neck, a little ruddy in the golden-dim hallway lights. I could see it dodging assassins’ knives and producing all the necessary lies.
“So that’s it,” I said. “The trail ran cold somewhere around the Swiss border, and you never heard from Lionel Richardson or the others again.”
“Not a word. But at least we now know someone made it to Switzerland.”
“Do you think they survived?”
“I think Richardson was likely found out and killed, or he would have popped up again. As for the others, I can’t say. There are ways to disappear, especially when Armageddon is breaking out. To be honest, I don’t particularly care at the moment.” James laid his scarred hand atop mine, on the knob.
I studied his warm fingers with my wine-blurred eyes.
Friday night. Friday afternoon in New York. What was Doctor Paul doing right now? Were he and Gogo going out tonight? Had they gone out last night, had they gone to his apartment? They were engaged now, and everyone knew what engaged meant these days. It gave you sanctity. It meant even virtuous Gogo was free to slink after dark into Doctor Paul’s apartment as I had, to lie on the floor with him and stare at the bumpy ceiling. And Paul? Well, he’d been paid handsomely, hadn’t he? No backing out now. Been paid a down payment of half a million dollars to take care of Gogo, to make her happy, to buy her a big oak-flanked colonial in the suburbs and fill her womb with the babies she craved. Maybe he’d already made dutiful love to her on that white bed of his. Taken her virginity carefully—It’s all right, sweetheart, I’m a doctor, you won’t feel a thing—and held her afterward while she wept with joy.
Well. Maybe not. But he would. Eventually. Lightfoot would hold him to it.
And it was fine, fine. Gogo gets her man, her man gets his money, Vivian keeps her job. A nice square deal for all concerned. Everyone goes home with a prize.
I said, “Don’t get your hopes up, Mr. Merriwether, James Merriwether. I already told you I wasn’t going to sleep with you.”