Some women can be fooled all of the time, and all women can be fooled some of the time, but the same woman can’t be fooled by the same man in the same way more than half the time.
—HELEN ROWLAND
SOPHIE
The lobby of the Pickwick Arms, that same instant
MISS SOPHIE Faninal, poised at the familiar Pickwick front desk, wearing yesterday’s navy suit and a fresh pair of white gloves, curls her fingers around her pocketbook and attempts to master a growing sense of panic.
“But I don’t understand,” she says. “Why hasn’t my sister answered her telephone? Hasn’t anyone bothered to check on her?”
“We are not in the habit of disturbing our guests unnecessarily, Miss Faninal,” says the man behind the desk.
“Except to telephone them.”
“That was the police.” He glances at the men standing at Sophie’s shoulder, dressed in uniform, and then at the man standing quietly at her side. He clears his throat. “In any case, Mrs. Fitzwilliam rang down at approximately six forty-five to order breakfast, so I believe we can rest assured that she is alive and well.”
Sophie holds out her hand. “Then you’ll be so good as to return my key, won’t you? My sister and I were sharing the suite, after all.”
The man coughs and glances again at the policemen behind her. “Of course. But I’m afraid these gentlemen must wait in the lobby. It is not our policy to disturb our guests—”
“Unnecessarily. Yes. I quite agree.” Sophie forms a white cotton fist around the brass key, which is attached to a round brass plate engraved with the number 404, and turns an exact half circle. “Gentlemen? You’ll excuse me. I shall return shortly with my sister, and we will put ourselves entirely at your disposal.”
She looks each man in the eye, and saves a last confident half smile for the detective in charge, a man named Lieutenant Curtis. Lieutenant Curtis has been unexpectedly kind. From the moment of her arrival, driven out of Manhattan and into the suburbs in Octavian’s Ford—driven by Octavian himself at a steady and ripping forty miles an hour, engine whining in disbelief—the lieutenant has taken her shock and dismay at face value, unlike the rest of the squad, who seem to think she has something to do with her father’s escape from the Fairfield County Jail, at some point in the middle of the previous night. She wants to tell them that she was drinking bourbon on the kitchen floor with Miss Julie Schuyler at most points in the middle of last night, when she wasn’t dancing a mad and unsteady turkey trot to an old ragtime record on her father’s Victrola, but that isn’t the kind of thing you tell a disapproving arrow-straight police detective, is it?
At least she had Octavian by her side, thank God, tousle-haired and reassuring. He didn’t say much, but he wasn’t leaving her alone: that much he made clear to everyone concerned, including Sophie. He was popping out of the Ford and onto the sidewalk almost as soon as she opened her front door on Thirty-Second Street, an hour or so earlier, asking if she was all right. “No, I’m not,” she told him. “My father’s just escaped from jail.”
Well, he wasn’t expecting that, but he didn’t waste any time. “Come along,” he said, opening the passenger door, and she didn’t have to tell him where to go. He just drove, up Third Avenue all the way to the Bronx, where he picked up the Boston Post Road and plowed straight through, almost without stopping. Like last winter, only faster and warmer and more ominous, and Sophie wasn’t sleeping. She was clutching the door handle, clenching her stomach, as if that could make the Ford go faster, make the miles shorten and disappear. Father escaped. Why? He had just submitted to the guilty verdict the day before. He had admitted defeat. He had bowed his head and given in at last.
The question still screams in her mind, but she doesn’t let it show. Oh, no. When Lieutenant Curtis nods his approval and turns to direct his squad toward the various entrances and exits of the hotel, she looks at Octavian and smiles bravely. “You’ll wait here for me, won’t you?”
“Of course. Do you want me to come up with you?”
“I don’t think they’ll let you. They’re suspicious, for some reason.”
“Don’t worry about that. Just get your sister down here, and I’ll speak to the lieutenant. Find out what I can.”
Her hands are damp inside her gloves. She rolls the key in her palm. Octavian looks expectant, almost as if he’s about to lean down and kiss her good-bye. As if they have the right to kiss each other.
“I meant to ask—” she says hurriedly.
“What?”
“Why weren’t you with her? Last night?”
“She wasn’t there.”
“Oh. I see.” The air in the lobby is warm and summerlike; every window is open to catch what morning freshness is available. To her left, the desk clerk is casting curious looks, though he’s pretending to write in his ledger. Sophie feels a little sick. As she turns to the elevator, she says, “Could you see if they have anything to eat? I’m famished.”
“Of course. Coffee?”
“Yes,” she says, over her shoulder.
There is a single elevator at the far end of the lobby, with burnished bronze doors, hidden behind a pair of pillars. As Sophie waits for the car to descend, another guest joins her, a man. A little too close. She makes a half step to the side, and he says, in a low voice, “I beg your pardon. Miss Fortescue?”
“Faninal.”
“I beg your pardon. I couldn’t help overhearing that you’re on your way up to see your sister?”
She doesn’t turn her head. She stares up at the slender arrow on the dial above the bronze doors, heart thudding, and says, “I’m afraid it’s a private matter, sir, but I appreciate your interest.” (Her standard response to a member of the Curious Public.)
The man shifts his feet. She can’t see him, but he seems about average: average size, average clothing. His voice has a bit of masculine bite, that edge of roughness that suggests a smoking habit.
The arrow begins to move downward. Three. Two.
The man persists. “I—I understand. It’s just . . . well, I believe my wife is upstairs with her, this very minute.”
“Your wife?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He hesitates. “I think you’re acquainted with her. Mrs. Lumley.”
The bell dings softly, and the doors open, revealing a delicate metal grille. The attendant opens it and looks at them expectantly from beneath his cap. The car behind him is small and square, upholstered in red, smelling faintly of a woman’s stale floral perfume. A narrow bench of red leather runs along the back wall.
Sophie turns to the man beside her. He’s shorter than she remembers from the trial, and his eyes are dark and pleading. “Mrs. Lumley?” she says. “She’s visiting my sister? Right now?”
“Yes. She—she left early this morning, and I couldn’t help wondering why—she wasn’t herself—I followed her here, just to make sure she was all right, and . . . well.” He tips his hat. Licks his lips. “I’m sorry. Don’t mean to disturb. But I’m awfully worried, and they won’t tell me what room it is.”
“Sir? Madam?” says the bored attendant.
Sophie recognizes the weight of Mr. Lumley’s face, the sick despondency of his eyes. The poor man. Her heart beats a little faster. Her skin itches beneath her clothes. Mrs. Lumley! What in God’s name is Mrs. Lumley doing with Virginia?
She reaches out and touches the man’s elbow.
“Mr. Lumley. I’m so sorry. I’ll send her right down to you, I promise.”
She steps forward into the elevator car. Says, Fourth floor, please.
The attendant reaches for the grille. Just as he begins to rattle it shut, Mr. Lumley hops forward to join them both in the car.
“If it’s all the same to you,” he says, staring up at the dial, reaching into his jacket pocket, “I think I’ll come along.”
He unwraps a piece of candy, pops it in his mouth, and offers another to Sophie.
“Peppermint?”