Cahoon said drily. “The servants are bound to be useless for a while.
Some of them may even leave.”
“One of them needs to,” Julius pointed out.
Elsa wanted to laugh, but she knew it was out of fear rather than amusement, and wildly inappropriate. She choked it back, pretending to have swallowed badly. No one took the slightest notice of her.
“It makes you realize how little you know people,” Olga murmured.
“One doesn’t know servants,” Minnie corrected her. “One knows
“If they knew about him, they would hardly have employed him.”
Julius looked at her coolly.
“I imagine they thought they did.” Cahoon began to eat again.
“None of us know as much about people as we imagine we do.” He glanced around the table, his eyes for a moment on each of them.
“We have all known one another to some degree for years, but I have no idea what dreams are passing through your mind, Julius. Or yours, Hamilton. What do you wish for most at this moment, Simnel?”
“A peaceful luncheon and a productive afternoon,” Simnel replied instantly, but there was a touch of color in his cheeks and he did not meet Cahoon’s eyes, still less did he look at Olga.
Elsa knew he was thinking of Minnie. Probably they all did. She stole a very quick glance at Olga, and saw the pallor of her skin and the pull on the fabric of her dress as it strained across her hunched shoulders. For a hot, ugly moment she hated Cahoon for his cruelty.
Minnie was concentrating on her plate, the shadow of her eyelashes dark on her cheek. She seemed to glow with satisfaction.
“Slashed with a knife?” Elsa said aloud. “Whoever takes a carving knife to an assignation in the linen cupboard? It doesn’t make any sense!”
“Cutting a whore up with a carving knife doesn’t make any sense wherever you do it, Elsa,” Cahoon said abruptly. “We aren’t looking for a sane man. Surely you realize that?”
She felt humiliated, but she could think of nothing to say that would rebut his remark. Of course she knew it was not a sane thing to do. It had been an impulsive observation.
Oddly, it was Hamilton Quase who defended her. “Someone who is sane enough to pass as a Palace servant probably appears sane in most things,” he said with a casual air, as if they were discussing a parlor game. “If he were running up and down the staircases with wild eyes and blood on his hands, someone would have noticed.”
“Providing they also were sober,” Olga said waspishly. “And not doing much the same! Were any of you sober enough last night to have noticed such a thing?”
“Unkind, my dear,” Hamilton responded, picking up his glass again. “You should not remind a man of his lapses, especially in front of his wife.”
“She is the one person with whom they are quite safe,” Cahoon responded, looking across the table at Liliane.
Liliane’s eyes were very bright and there was a touch of color in her cheeks. She too seemed to search for something to say, and not to find it. For a moment a shadow crossed her face with possibly hatred in it. Then, as if the sun had returned, it was gone. “Of course,” she said with her lovely smile. “Are we not all loyal to family and friends?
Such a thing is hardly worth remark.”
Julius applauded silently, but none of them missed his gesture.
Minnie shivered. “It’s a horrible thought.” She looked at her father, shrugging her shoulders elegantly, avoiding everyone’s eyes but his. “I hope they find him very soon.”
“Don’t make any assignations with servants in the linen cupboard in the meantime,” Julius told her. “You should be safe enough.”
Cahoon froze, his face red. “What did you say?” he demanded, his voice like ice.
Julius paled slightly, but he held Cahoon’s eye and repeated his words exactly.
Cahoon leaned forward, knocking a water glass over and ignoring the mess on the table. Elsa knew she should intervene, but she was afraid of Cahoon when he lost his temper. She tried to speak, though her mouth was dry and her throat tight.
“You are speaking of my daughter, sir!” Cahoon said loudly. “You will apologize to her, and to the rest of us, or I will horsewhip you!”
“No, sir,” Julius corrected him. “I am speaking of my wife. I think sometimes you forget that. And undoubtedly sometimes she does.”
For once Minnie blushed.
Cahoon’s face was still red, his eyes blazing.
“Calm down and don’t be an ass,” Hamilton Quase said calmly and with a delicate derision. “Nobody is fooled by any of this. We are all afraid. There’s a madman loose in the Palace, and he may be downstairs socially, but there is no bar on the stairway and he can come up anytime he wishes, as demonstrated by the fact that the wretched woman was found in the cupboard on our landing. Please heaven, let’s hope this policeman is up to his job and takes the man away as soon as possible.”
Cahoon turned to regard Hamilton coldly. “Do you have any idea what you are talking about, Hamilton? I saw the woman’s body! It was like nothing you have ever imagined. Or perhaps you have? How long were you in Africa?”
Liliane was gripping her fish fork as if it were a weapon, her knuckles white. She stared at Cahoon, hatred in her eyes. “Long enough to show courage and resolution in the face of tragedy, Mr.
Dunkeld, and to know how to help people rather than make things worse by losing his temper and his judgment,” she said loudly. “How long were you there?”
Hamilton looked at her with some surprise, and a sudden, overwhelming tenderness in his eyes. Then he turned to Cahoon.
Elsa wondered what they were talking about. She could see Julius’s eyes widen, and a faint flush on Hamilton’s face. They were referring to something specific. They knew it. She, Minnie, and Olga were completely confused.
Slowly Cahoon sat back in his chair.
Elsa found herself shaking with relief.
The servants, who had stepped back, resumed their silent duties, and one by one everyone began to eat again.
Elsa’s mind raced. What had Cahoon been referring to? It had been an attack on Hamilton somehow, and Liliane had leaped in to protect him, as she seemed to do so often. From what? What was she afraid of? According to Cahoon, a woman of the streets had been murdered here where they were guests, and everyone was afraid. But were they all afraid of the same thing, or was it different for each of them?
The main course was served. Cahoon introduced the subject of the great railway again. The men all contributed from their various skills and fields of knowledge as to the difficulties they might face and how they should be overcome.
Simnel was a financier, brilliant at attracting funds at the most excellent rates. What he had to say was in many ways dry: lists of bankers and wealthy men who would be willing to invest. It was the wealth of his knowledge and his memory for detail that impressed. He knew not only everyone’s worth, but their history, and, if he chose to, he could be amusing in recounting it.
He spoke mostly to Cahoon, but he included all of them. When he looked at Olga it was casual, as it was to Elsa and Liliane, no more than that. When he looked at Minnie there was a heat in his eyes, and he moved his glance quickly, as though he knew he betrayed himself.
He did not look at Julius at all. Elsa wondered if it were guilt because Minnie was his wife, or something older and deeper than that.
Did he want Minnie for himself, or was it really because by taking her he was cuckolding his brother?
They moved to discussing one of the most difficult legs of the journey diplomatically, which, as Olga had said, lay between German East Africa and Congo Free State. Julius touched briefly on how it was both a political and a logistic problem. It was his art to persuade, suggest compromise, know every nation’s ambitions and fears,
