less than thirty minutes. Moving a frayed pants cuff, Asher saw the bare ankle had not yet begun to turn livid. Probably, Asher thought with a queer, angry coldness, it never would, much.
He blew out the match, stowed the stub-with the stubs of the first two-in his pocket, and slithered from between the bath chair and bass fiddle case. He'd passed the conductor in the second-class carriage, on his way down the train. The official's nearness had probably interrupted the murderer before he could dump the body out into the night, or perhaps Ernchester was waiting till they were farther from London. Asher left the compartment quickly, dusting his hands on his coat skirts and muttering to himself like a man who has not found what he sought. Nobody in third class gave him a glance.
By the time the train reached Dover, he suspected, the body would be gone. To call attention now to what he had found would only, inevitably, call attention to himself. He wasn't such a fool as to think he would then ever reach Paris alive.
In the dingy second-class compartment where he had left his satchel, a lively family of homebound Parisians had made themselves very much at home. They were passing bread and cheese among themselves; the bonne femme offered him some and a blood orange, while her mari laboriously scanned a battered copy of I'Aurore. Asher thanked her and fished out his own copy of the Times, most of which he had already read on the journey up from Tunbridge Wells, and wondered academically what he was going to tell whoever was in charge of the Paris section these days. It was going to be a long night, he knew. He dared not sleep, lest Farren sense him through his dreams.
2/11/1908-0600 PARIS/GARE DU NORD ERNCHESTER GONE TO PARIS WITH IGNACE KAROLYI AUSTRIAN SIDE STOP FOLLOWED STOP WILL HAND OFF COME BACK TONIGHT JAMES
Ernchester. Lydia Asher laid the thin sheet of yellow paper down on the gilt- inlaid desk before her, heart beating quickly as she identified the name. Gone to Paris with someone from the "Austrian side."
It took a moment for the meaning to sink in, mostly because Lydia, although she could have distinguished a parathyroid from a parathymus at sight, couldn't immediately remember whether the Austrians were allied with the Germans or with England. But when it did, the implications made her shiver.
"Is it from the master, ma'am?"
She looked up. Ellen, who had brought the telegram to her with her tea, lingered in the study door, big red hands tucked under her apron. Last night's inky downpour had dwindled this morning to a slow, steady drench from a sky like steel; beyond the tall windows, Holywell Street was a shining pebblework of cobble and wet, softened by Lydia 's myopia to a gentle sepia and silver Manet. The tall brown wall of New College across the road was nearly black with damp. Now and then a student would pass, or a don, faceless ghosts nevertheless identifiable-even as Ellen was identifiable-by their bodies and the way they moved: there was no question, to Lydia, of mistaking the little banty-cock Dean of Brasenose, with his self-important strut, for the equally diminutive but self- effacing Dr. Vyrdon of Christ Church.
Lydia drew a deep breath, blinking huge brown eyes in the direction of the dark square of the hall door, and realized for the first time that morning that she was starving. "Yes," she said. "He was called away unexpectedly to Paris." "Tcha!" Ellen shook her head disapprovingly. "And in all that rain! What's in Paris that's more important than him coming home last night, and you so worried?"
Since Lydia couldn't very well reply, Probably a partnership that will begin with Germany conquering England and end God knows where, she said nothing. Ellen went on cheerily, "I told you not to worry about Mr. James, didn't I, ma'am? With all that rain it'd stand to reason he'd be delayed, though I never did think of Paris, myself. Something to do with investments, like as not." Ellen had worked for some years for Lydia 's father and was used to the fact that if the master of the house departed suddenly, it had to do with investments. "Though I didn't know," she added, with one of her occasional bursts of sapience, "as he had any."
"A few small ones," Lydia said truthfully, folding the telegram and unlocking a drawer of the gilt secretary at which she worked. Its contents