Max could see three of them seated in the box. Appleby was between the white-haired man and a woman with short black hair, their backs to him. He aimed the revolver at the back of Appleby’s head just as the other two were turning around.
‘What is it?’ the man began saying, peering into the shadows. ‘Have they caught the fellow …?’ Then his voice trailed off as he saw the gun.
Max took in the woman’s features all at once, just as she began screaming. He saw the wide-flared nose, the high cheeks, the hint of bosom at the top of her cornflower blue evening gown. The absolute look of horror on her face made him hesitate.
At the sound of the scream, the figure of Appleby suddenly crumpled to the floor; Max had no clear shot now. He was vaguely aware of movement from his left, from the white-haired man. Shifting his attention in that direction, Max saw that he had drawn an abnormally large pistol from inside his evening coat and Max jumped backward just as the boom of its discharge reverberated in his eardrums, just as a bullet thudded into the door jamb in back of him, splintering wood.
More screams came from the corridor at the sound of the shot, and Max bolted from the box, stumbling into the crowd of theatergoers, knocking down a buxom matron in his panic, her long necklace breaking and pearls scattering across the floor.
He jumped over the fallen woman, landed on some of the pearls strewn across the ground and stumbled for a moment, then righted himself and continued running through the crowd. He looked over his shoulder as he rushed along the corridor, and the white-haired man was still following him, trying to take aim once more, but the crowd prevented him from shooting.
‘Stop him!’ the man shouted from in back. ‘He’s an assassin!’
The word galvanized the crowd, Max noticed. Men and women stared with frightened eyes as he lunged past them, seeing the gun in his hand and making way for him. No one laid a hand on him as he reached the stairs and leaped two steps at a time to the ground floor foyer. His left leg almost gave way under him as he took the last step, and he grimaced with pain.
The audience here was in the same sort of panic as those upstairs. Max added to it by yelling, ‘Fire! Fire!’ as he raced toward the front doors.
A trap. They have laid a trap for me, he thought. He looked left and right as he neared the front doors. Would there be more men waiting for me out here? But he had no time to worry about this, for he was swept along in a flood of people rushing from the theater for their lives. Others had taken up his chant: ‘Fire! Open the doors!’
In back of him, towering above the others coming down the stairs, the white-haired man was still in pursuit.
Max held his pistol under his coat as the crowd pushed through the street doors and onto the sidewalk under the marquee. He caught a glimpse of the old colored doorman and the fellow seemed to recognize him, but then Max began running east down E Street, and then out onto Pennsylvania Avenue. He looked back once, and the man following him had got bottlenecked at the street door to the theater. Max ran one block, the night-time strollers looking at him suspiciously; then glancing back and seeing no one following him, he deftly holstered his pistol and slowed his pace. A streetcar passed, jangling its bell, and halted at a stop half a block away. He raced to it, jumping on the back platform just as it was pulling away from the stop.
Looking out the back window, Max saw the white-haired man and three other burly fellows turn the corner onto Pennsylvania Avenue. They looked up and down the busy street once, twice, then shrugged resignedly, turning to go back to the theater. All except the white-haired man who continued staring, it seemed to Max, straight at the streetcar carrying him, but then he too finally turned and headed back to the theater.
Max breathed deeply. His depth of focus suddenly shifted so that he was now looking at his own reflection in the window of the streetcar.
Smiling, he thought. I’m damn well smiling. I’ve made a botch up of the Appleby job, nearly got myself killed or at least captured, and I’m smiling.
But he kept his mind off that one for a bit longer, closely inspecting the busy avenue outside of the streetcar for any signs of being followed. The streetcar lurched along the rails; gaslights mingled with newer electric streetlights; commoners and moneyed members of the American aristocracy rubbed shoulders, as well. Oyster shops and elegant restaurants, light spilling onto the sidewalk from their windows, were side by side; horse-drawn cabs and honking Model T Fords shared the road. But no sign of anyone following him. Yet.
The conductor, a small man in a blue uniform and cap came up to him, and Max almost jumped at the sight of the uniform, then calmed himself, taking his hand off the butt of the pistol in his shoulder holster, and fetching his change purse instead.
Got to figure this out, he thought as the conductor left him, a censorious look on his face for the unorthodox manner in which Max had caught the streetcar. The watchers, the dummy in the box where Appleby should have been – for it was now clear to Max that the figure of Adrian Appleby had been a mannequin, which explained why it toppled over the way it did. And the question the white-haired man asked when he thought Max was the guard: ‘Have they caught the fellow?’
All of this made it obvious. They expected me, Max thought.
Had Appleby been at the theater at all? I saw him come, pull up in the Cadillac, get out amid the crowd of reporters, and bustle into the theater.
Correction: I saw some short round man with a top hat rushing into the theater. Had it been Appleby at all? he now wondered.
But in the final analysis it’s not important whether Appleby actually arrived or not. What is important is the fact of the dummy in the box. That means they knew of my plan beforehand. Which means that they – I don’t even know who they are – have somehow tumbled to my mission and that it will be much more difficult to get to Appleby now.
He had no doubt that he could still get to the Englishman; gave no thought to calling off his mission. He knew only that the job would be more difficult now.
Damage assessment: Appleby knows that he’s being hunted and will be on his guard now. There may be a description of me as a result of this fiasco. May be, he thought ironically as the streetcar slowed to another stop. Hell, the pork-faced watcher I left breathing spit bubbles in the men’s toilet will damn well remember me. The doorman also got a fine look at my face. I might just as well have posed at a photographer’s studio.
He thought for one bad moment of the old night watchman at the medical building whom he had killed to prevent just such an eventuality.
One saving grace, he thought, is that when attempting to make the kill I had my hat pulled down low over my eyes and my coat on. The white-haired one won’t have gotten a good look at me, nor did the others in the box.
Several people got off at the next stop, two more got on; older men in evening dress chattering about a musical evening they had just been to.
Not like the one I attended, he thought, edging farther away from the new arrivals, continuing to stare out into the night as the streetcar started up again with a lurch.
I’ll alter my appearance, he thought. Shave my beard for one. That should be simple enough. I need to get rid of this fedora; substitute it for a cap. And again the thought came up: how did they get on to me? Max was certain it had something to do with Manstein in New York. Either the fool had been talking to the wrong people, or else the message to Berthold had been intercepted. Whichever, it meant that Max had to go it alone from here on out. No more communicating with Manstein or Berthold.
That decision made, Max began to almost relax. The rest fit together easily after that: first a lodging needed to be found for the night. Some cheap accommodation, and he knew the spot for that: in the area between the Capitol and Union Station, the very direction in which the streetcar was now headed. A place where no one would be overly concerned that he had no luggage; he could say he left it at the station.
He got off the streetcar at 1st Street and felt suddenly quite chill. He took off his hat and rolled it up, stuffing it into his pocket, then continued down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol, looming white and almost iridescent with the snow all about it. Tour busses were parked in front of hotels along this part of the avenue; local restaurants were Chinese and Italian. Only then did he remember that he had not eaten since breakfast, and he suddenly felt ravenous. He went into Wu Lee’s Chop House, had chop suey and fried rice with a steaming pot of aromatic tea, and felt much better. After paying, he went back onto the street and turned left, going north, on New Jersey Avenue. The first hotel he came to, the Central, he went into. He paid $1.75 in advance for one night, using the name Adrian Lee, the first to pop into his head: Lee for the Chinese food he’d just eaten, and Adrian for the man he would kill. He gave his address as 2321 Wood Avenue, Brooklyn, having no idea if there even was a Wood Avenue in Brooklyn, and if there were, whether or not it went into the two thousands. But the clerk, a sallow faced middle-aged man, did not care; so long as he had the money in hand and some name and address to put in the book.
His room was on the second floor, bath down the hall, an iron bedstead painted white, pictures of Washington, DC on the walls, a frayed rug on the wooden floor. Exhaustion overcame him now. He needed sleep. In the morning he would go out and buy a razor and shave; then he would make further plans. He locked the door and lay down fully clothed on the lumpy bed, the aged springs creaking loudly.
He was asleep in two minutes, a skill he had learned in the trenches.
Fitzgerald felt like a damn fool. Firstly, that the German had been able to gain entrance to the theater at all without raising suspicion. But the Pinkerton men had concentrated on patrolling the second floor once the street doors had been closed and had not expected their man to enter late. The theater staff was not looking for anyone suspicious: they had not been apprised of the situation for fear that the theater management would simply cancel the performance were they to learn of an assassin stalking the corridors. And then Fitzgerald himself, along with the Pinkerton agents he had hired, had been completely taken in by the firebomb the German had set as a decoy. Their attention had been diverted so that the fellow had actually been able to walk right up to the door of their box seats unmolested, brazenly open it and take aim at where Appleby would have been sitting had he come to the theater at all.
They were now back at Poplars and Catherine, fortified by two glasses of brandy, had gone to bed.
Brave girl, Fitzgerald thought. And I let her in for possible bodily harm by my carelessness. She could have been injured, even killed by that German madman. The thought sent a chill through his body as he stood by the fire in the music room. He could not imagine life without Catherine.
Yet she had seemed to bear up bravely. After the small fire had been put out in the third-floor corridor, and after the panic was over and he had returned from chasing the German, he found her still sitting in the box. The dummy made up to resemble Appleby was propped up once again in the chair next to her. The Pinkerton agent who had posed as Appleby for the arrival at the theater had switched places once inside the theater.
‘There you are,’ she had said brightly as he came running back to her, out of breath, fearful that she might have been injured in the crush of people. ‘This is the most entertaining evening of theater the National has ever seen, I am sure.’
But he could tell, once he took her arm, that this was bravado on her part; the cheeky Devereaux side of her at work to cover up a case of nerves. He could feel her trembling as he walked her out of the theater.
Now Appleby was sitting silently in one of the armchairs in the music room, his face ashen, forehead creased in thought. He had remained at the Poplars under Pinkerton guard while the fiasco unfolded at the theater.
In the other armchair, a snifter of brandy in his hand and damn the regulations, sat Chief Inspector Lewis of the Washington Metropolitan Police. A big man, easily 6ʹ3ʺ and well over 200 pounds, he looked uncomfortable in any enclosed space, and his legs stretched out drastically as he sat in the chair. He was one of those men of Scots ancestry who seemed to have hair growing in the most unlikely places: swirling out of his ears and nose, swooping horn-like up from his eyebrows. He wore a moustache clipped short in military fashion and salt-and-pepper hair combed from front to back. No uniform; a worn and baggy gray suit instead.
He had arrived not long before and was still looking rather flummoxed. Fitzgerald was considering his last question; Appleby looked up at Fitzgerald and shook his head.
‘I’m afraid we cannot divulge that, Inspector Lewis.’
Fitzgerald added, ‘Let’s just leave it at “informed sources”.’
Lewis nodded; the entire chair seemed to rock with the motion. He set the snifter down on the leather-covered table next to his chair, fixing first Fitzgerald and then Appleby with a determined look.
‘So let me get this straight. These informed sources of yours tell you that there is someone gunning for Sir Adrian. That he means to do his work, in point of fact, at the benefit affair. And instead of calling the whole thing off, or at least calling the police, you two go ahead and set a trap to catch the fellow. You bring those incompetent Pinkertons into it and almost burn down the New National Theater as a result.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Am I being too severe, Mr Fitzgerald? Am I stating it perhaps too baldly?’
‘No, inspector,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘I’m afraid you have it only too right.’
‘You’ll pardon me for saying so, sir, but amateurs should not meddle in these affairs. I do not attempt to advise the Congress on matters of diplomacy, if you take my meaning.’
Fitzgerald nodded. ‘I do.’ He felt like a damned ass, as a matter of fact.
Appleby, however, was not prepared for contrition. ‘We are not schoolboys, inspector. We had a plan, we engaged professionals for the task. Were we to have come to you with our bit of information, uncorroborated, what would you have told us? Fairy tales? Paranoia? If in doubt, cancel the event. None of which would have caught our man.’
‘And neither did your scheme get your man.’
Lewis stood now, an imposing figure, quite manfully built. Fitzgerald, tall enough in his own right, felt rather diminutive next to him.
‘What you managed to do, Sir Adrian, was to risk the lives of several hundred innocent people at that theater. What if our fellow was truly a madman? What if it did not matter to him how many he killed in the process of killing you? Why, that bomb he set as a diversion could just as easily have been a much larger one, or a series of incendiaries that could have burned down the entire theater, killing many of those inside, and you wouldn’t even have been there.’
‘You sound disappointed at that prospect, inspector,’ Appleby quipped.
Lewis ignored the remark, pausing dramatically and staring at Appleby, who sucked in air angrily. A moment of strained silence followed; the fire in the hearth crackled.
Finally: ‘Point taken, inspector,’ Appleby said.
‘So tell me,’ Inspector Lewis said almost jovially now that he was shown a degree of respect. ‘Who wants to kill you and why?’
Fitzgerald watched closely as again Appleby sought his eyes, a question on his face. Fitzgerald raised his eyebrows at him noncommittally. Let Adrian decide how much he tells the inspector, he thought.
The exchange did not go unnoticed by Lewis.
‘We know next to nothing about the assassin,’ Appleby began. ‘He is German and he means to kill me before I have an opportunity to confer with President Wilson.’
The inspector raised his bushy gray eyebrows at this revelation. ‘War business?’
‘Something like,’ Appleby replied vaguely. ‘A message of the greatest moment and secrecy.’
‘So why haven’t you talked with the president already?’
Lewis, Fitzgerald noted, was as naive of diplomatic affairs as he, Fitzgerald was, of police matters.
‘It’s not quite that easy, Chief Inspector,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘We’re scheduled to have a meeting tomorrow.’
The one positive side effect of the fiasco at the theater was that it might help convince Wilson of the authenticity of Adrian’s Zimmermann telegram, Fitzgerald thought.
‘I’m sure nothing in Washington is simple, Mr Fitzgerald. But it appears that from this point what we must do is clear-cut.’ Lewis turned suddenly to Appleby. ‘We’ve got to keep you alive until you see President Wilson.’
‘Well,’ Appleby drawled, ‘I was rather hoping there might be life thereafter, as well.’
Lewis chuckled slightly at this.
‘The worst of it is,’ Appleby sighed, ‘I was hoping to feast on your lovely shellfish at an oyster bar downtown. To see the latest Chaplin film. Now I am beginning to feel rather like a shut-in.’
‘And that is exactly how you will remain until we get you to the president or until we catch this German.’
‘Do you really hold out much hope for the latter?’ Fitzgerald asked the policeman.
‘Well, we have a description of him now.’
‘I am afraid as eyewitnesses, I and my wife will not be able to provide much information. I told you, he had his hat pulled down low over his brow; I could barely see his eyes. He did have a beard. Reddish-brown. And he appeared to be slightly built, though it was difficult to tell under the bulky overcoat he wore.’
Lewis pulled out a leather notepad from the breast pocket of his coat, flipping through the pages until he found what he was looking for, and then began reading out to them.
‘Subject is approximately five feet ten inches, one hundred and fifty pounds. Bearded, with reddish-brown hair worn medium length, parted high on the right. Goes by the name of Per Walloon, posing as a Belgian.’ He looked up from the pad. ‘At least tonight he did.’ Then he continued reading: ‘Walks with a slight limp, according to one witness.’
He closed the pad and stuffed it back into his breast pocket.
‘I noticed no limp,’ Fitzgerald said.
‘You wouldn’t then, would you? Not if he were wearing an ankle length overcoat.’
Fitzgerald thought about this for a moment. The man had moved strangely, now he came to think of it. He had not remarked on it before because they had both been jostled through the crowded theater as Fitzgerald had chased the man.
‘The doorman gave us a pretty thorough description,’ Lewis said. ‘This Walloon, or whatever his real name is, came in late claiming to be with the press. Had a quite noticeable accent. It was the doorman who noticed the limp. One of your Pinkerton hires is the other witness. He saw our man up close, before he got his head nearly bashed in, that is. The fellow was feigning sickness, so the Pinkerton fellow is not too sure about the limp. He’s only sure about his own headache. I should say he’s lucky to be alive at all.’ Lewis paused and scowled suddenly. ‘Isn’t it about time we cut the bull?’
‘What do you mean, inspector?’ Fitzgerald tried his best to sound taken aback, but he knew he was not fooling Lewis, and he also knew suddenly why the big man was a chief inspector.
‘Look, this is not just any German, is it? This is an agent, probably a damn clever one at that. We found traces of the bomb: bits of lead tubing. That is a signature with the Germans, these tube bombs. So he’s a professional, not just a vengeful maniac. He’s a man with a mission. And we know he’s clever enough to figure out your Pinkerton set-up and to set a diversion of his own that allowed him to get past all the men protecting the dummy. And I am not referring to you, Sir Adrian, but to your stand-in. So please, let us talk like mature men. How much do you know about the assassin?’
He glowered first at Appleby, then at Fitzgerald.
Finally Appleby replied, ‘Truly not much more than I have already told you, inspector. He signs himself as “M”. That is his only name thus far. And he communicates personally with Berlin Military Intelligence.’
At this, Lewis let out a whistle. ‘Big enough.’
‘Yes,’ Appleby said. ‘Big enough.’
‘I suppose I should not ask how it is you came to know about the Berlin communication.’
Fitzgerald knew they were in good hands now with Lewis; he put things together quite rapidly.
‘No, you should not,’ Appleby said.
‘Is that why you hesitated to call in the police to begin with?’
‘Perhaps,’ Appleby replied.
A knock came at the door and Thomas poked his head in.
‘Another policeman to see you, Mr Edward.’
Fitzgerald glanced at Lewis who shrugged in answer to the silent question.
‘Did my men send him?’ Lewis asked the butler.
Thomas nodded, plainly irritated. ‘The man’s with the police.’
Only then did the enormity of the situation strike Fitzgerald: Lewis had asked the seemingly obvious because he thought it possible that M, the German, might have tracked Adrian to Poplars and might be capable of posing as a detective to gain entrance. An assassin here in our house. It’s part of what this telegram has brought into our lives.
Lewis seemed satisfied at Thomas’s answer, nodding at Fitzgerald.
‘Show him in, Thomas,’ Fitzgerald said.
He was already doing so, unbidden.
A short sparkling man was ushered in, hardly the typical looking policeman, Fitzgerald thought, wearing a loud checked suit cut in the jazzy fashion of a couple years ago: a wide shouldered jacket that hung down well past the waist, and pants tapered to cuffs ending a good inch above the man’s spats. A tiepin that looked to be diamond was affixed in the middle of his green tie, and a yellow vest completed the ensemble. His bright red hair was brilliantined back flat off his forehead.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ Lewis muttered as the fellow sauntered into the room. Then louder: ‘Hello Niel. I didn’t think this was a Bureau case.’
The short man came right up to the inspector and shook hands energetically with him. Fitzgerald now saw that this man’s jaw was working, chewing quite avidly on gum.
‘Inspector Lewis,’ he said, continuing to pump the large man’s hand. ‘Good to see you on the job so late at night.’
‘The Metropolitan Police never sleeps, Niel. Haven’t you heard?’
Fitzgerald could see that there was no love lost between the two. The mention of ‘Bureau’ by Lewis let him know why: Niel was obviously an agent for the fledgling Bureau of Investigation at the Justice Department. The Bureau did not sit well with most of Washington, for it had been rammed down the throats of lawmakers by presidential decree during a Congressional recess.
Niel snapped his gum and turned from Lewis. ‘You’ll be Fitzgerald, then, I suppose.’
Fitzgerald shook the tiny proffered hand with its cool palm. The man continued chewing gum at a furious rate.
‘Sorry to be so long in getting here,’ he said holding onto Fitzgerald’s hand and seeking out his eye. ‘Agent Niel’s my name.’ He pulled out an engraved card with a phone number under his name. ‘You may need to contact me. Anytime night or day.’
Fitzgerald pocketed the card; he found the little man quite ridiculous.
‘Sir Adrian Appleby,’ Agent Niel said turning to Appleby. ‘Am I right?’
Appleby grunted assent. Fitzgerald could see he did not much care for Agent Niel’s appearance; to Adrian he will appear an uppity Irishman, Fitzgerald thought.
‘I understand someone tried to kill you tonight.’
Lewis finally spoke up, ‘Really, Niel. I believe we have this investigation under control. There’s no question of interstate violations here.’
Agent Niel ignored Inspector Lewis’s statement. ‘It must have been a bit of a fright for you, sir,’ Niel said to Appleby.
‘Not really.’
‘Well now,’ Niel began in an effusive vein, ‘I’ve heard of the cold blood of the blue bloods, but I would think if a man tries to take a shot at you, it would put your hair up.’
Fitzgerald could see that Adrian was not amused by Niel’s forced folksy approach.
‘Very little hair to get up, I’m afraid,’ he said, swiping a hand over his glistening pate.
‘Say, that’s good. I like that. You’ve got guts, and a sense of humor.’
‘Nothing to do with “guts”, as you so quaintly put it. I was simply not in attendance at the theater. One with more scintillating verbal skills took my place.’
Niel’s face made a wide-eyed expression of revelation. ‘Oh, I get it. Laying a trap, eh?’ He suddenly reached in a vest pocket and drew out a small green paper covered packet, pulled out a thin stick of gum and offered it to Appleby.
‘Here. Have one. Does wonders for the digestion.’ He patted a nonexistent paunch. ‘The pepsin in it, see. Helps break the food down wonderfully. Medicinal stuff, chewing gum.’
Appleby took the gum and stuffed it into a pocket of the silk smoking jacket he was wearing. Fitzgerald only now noticed the felt slippers Appleby had on: monogrammed on the toes with AA.
‘Thank you. I’ll save it for after my next meal.’ Deadpan.
‘Well,’ Lewis said. ‘Now that introductions have been made, I assume you’ll be going. We really do have things under control here.’
Niel shot him a look of contempt. ‘I’m sure you do, inspector. The Metropolitan Police have been doing wonders with foreign agents and saboteurs, I’m told. Quite a success record.’
For the first time, Fitzgerald began to suspect that Niel was more than just a loudly clad gum-chewing would-be policeman. There were obviously intelligent processes going on behind his beady little eyes. He took a quick look at Niel’s face as Lewis and he glowered at each other. The nose looked to have broken more than once; his brow was high, not just because of his hair style. On this second glance, Fitzgerald saw not a faux dandy, but a fighter, a street brawler whom he had underestimated. And there was cunning in his eyes as he fixed Chief Inspector Lewis with his squint.
‘I’ll let you gentlemen get on with your discussion,’ Niel said as he suddenly turned from Lewis to Fitzgerald, half-bowed and then went to the door. ‘Remember the number,’ he nodded to Fitzgerald’s pocket where he had placed the agent’s calling card. ‘You can get me any time. Leave a message. We’ll be seeing each other again, I’m sure.’
Then to Appleby as he opened the door: ‘And I would stay indoors until returning to England if I were you, sir. Pesky cold out it is. Bad for the health. Try the gum, won’t you? I’ll let myself out.’
And he was gone.
‘Stupid little man,’ Lewis muttered. ‘Ought to stick with his prostitutes and interstate bookies.’
‘Word seems to travel fast in Washington,’ Appleby said. ‘Perhaps this Bureau can be of help.’
‘Believe me, Sir Adrian, those fellows are not the ones you want on your side. They couldn’t detect a flea on a dog. All flash and no substance. It’s all about climbing, getting their precious Bureau more prominence. It may seem unprofessional for me to mention it, but it needs to be said.’
Agent Niel had left a bad feeling in the room; Fitzgerald understood now just how silly had been their grand scheme at the National Theater, how spurious their thoughts of handling the affair quietly.
Inspector Lewis dispelled the atmosphere somewhat by becoming quite practical: arrangements were made for an all night watch to be set up at Poplars. Five men would be on duty outside, five inside.
‘We’ll see Wilson in the morning,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘We’re scheduled for eleven. Then this whole thing will be over.’
Lewis nodded. ‘No going out, Sir Adrian. Not without a couple of my men at your side. Understood?’
Appleby nodded glumly, ready for a refill of his cognac.
‘I’ll be here first thing in the morning,’ Lewis went on. ‘We’ll arrange for a safe route to the White House. And home safe after that.’
Catherine wanted to put the events of tonight out of her mind; wanted to forget that evil looking figure at the door who made her feel so vulnerable. There would be no sleep for a long time, she knew, her body was full of adrenaline, her heart still pounding violently in her chest.
What a world, she thought. A terrible world we’re tolerating, where families are enslaved in tenements, where wild men roam the streets hunting down loveable old men like Uncle Adrian.
She began to feel a helplessness overcoming her and set her jaw against it. Tomorrow I’ll work; I’ll photograph the slums and thus begin my own Jacob Riis documentation of Washington. In my own way, I’ll battle against the darkness overcoming the world.
She felt better after making this decision; she would take control of her life once again. She got up from bed, wrapped a dressing gown around her shoulders, turned the small lamp on at her writing table by the window, and recorded some of the events of the day in her green, leather-covered journal. The mere act of writing soothed her nerves. Finished, she climbed back into bed.
Soon afterward Edward came into the room, quietly changing into his pajamas, considerately leaving the lights off as he did so. This simple gesture touched her profoundly. He slipped under the covers on his side of the massive four-poster, and reached out to pat her shoulder as he did every night when he thought she was sleeping. A tender gesture as she lay there night after night feigning the regular deep breaths of sleep so as to avoid physical intimacy.
But tonight she took his hand in hers, surprising him, pulling him to her.
‘Hold me,’ she whispered as he slid expectantly over to her side under the covers. ‘Hold me tight.’