Dorothy had steel in her soft blue stare. “What did Mr. Borchard think of you?”
“He thought well of me. I will tell you all about it.”
“Mr. Beale?” Alice flittered into their presence. “You have a call.”
“Who is it?”
“Mr. Edmund Cane.”
“Oh.” Charles looked to Dorothy.
“He’s called twice this afternoon,” Alice said.
“This will just take a moment.”
“Go ahead,” Dorothy said.
“Thank you, Alice.” He picked up his telephone. “This is Charles Beale.”
“Mr. Beale. This is Edmund Cane.”
“Yes, how do you do, Mr. Cane?”
“I am quite well. I am calling to inquire if you spoke with your employee, as we discussed? You thought perhaps he might have been watching outside the auction house.” At his slow, syllabic pace, the sentences took quite a while.
“Yes, I did speak with him,” Charles said. “I’m sorry I hadn’t called you back.”
“That is quite understandable. Did your employee have any information about the young woman who bought the desk?”
“Not really, I’m afraid. He thinks he may have seen her leaving the building and walking away, but it may not have been that person at all.”
“I see. Well, Mr. Beale, I am sorry to have disturbed you.”
“Not at all. In fact, I would be interested myself to know who she was representing.”
“I am sorry I do not know.”
“I’ve become quite interested in that desk myself.” Charles was still looking at Dorothy as he spoke to Edmund Cane. “Perhaps you could tell me who you were representing?”
A short pause. “I’m afraid I can’t give you that information, Mr.
Beale.”
“Oh, too bad. Because I think I’m actually interested in knowing!
Maybe if I can find any information about the blond woman, we could trade.”
“I would… I don’t…” Mr. Cane was having difficulty answering.
“That would…”
“Then never mind,” Charles said. “Just a thought. But if I do find anything, I will certainly call you.”
“As you wish. Thank you for your time, Mr. Beale.”
“Thank you for calling, Mr. Cane.”
“Are you done with your calls?” Dorothy asked.
“I think so.”
“Are you going out to see anyone else?”
“Not right now,” he said.
“Then Charles, dear,” Dorothy said. “What is going on?”
“To tell the truth… I have no idea.”
“You have an idea.”
“All right, then, yes. I have an idea. Well… no, I don’t. I don’t know whether I do or not.” He paused. “There is an idea, I just don’t know what it is.” He paused again. “It’s not that I have an idea, it’s that an idea has me.”
“Just say it, Charles.”
“I think that you want a cup of coffee.”
“I think that I do. Would I need my jacket?”
“It’s quite pleasant out.”
“Will it still be when we come back?”
“The weather should still be, at least.”
She took her jacket, and he led her down the stairs.
“Have we sold anything?” he asked Alice.
“The whole set of Tom Swift books.”
Two feet of shelf was empty. “What a large space,” he said hollowly.
“It is,” she said, broadly.
“Have Morgan order a new set,” he said, commandingly.
“I did it right away,” she said, quickly.
The evening air was warm and floral. Pots and window boxes were the obvious sources, but there must have been whole gardens hidden behind the houses. The air was patched with the first fragrances of spring.
It was a short walk to the corner and a completely different fragrance.
“I love this smell,” Dorothy said at the open door.
“What would you like?” he asked.
“Something a little sweet.”
She sat, and Charles soon joined her, and they inhaled the dense bouquet of coffee and its cafe fellow travelers.
“Are you peaceful?” Charles asked presently.
“I think I am.”
“Good. That will help.”
“And I’m ready for you to begin.”
He took one more deep breath. “I am intrigued by the papers that Derek had hidden in the book.”
“Well, of course. Just ‘intrigued’?”
“Tottering on the edge of deeply disturbed.”
“What do you think they mean?”
“That is the point. I’ve decided not to jump to conclusions. I am going to follow the wind.”
“Then where has it led you?”
“Karen Liu and John Borchard are both important, busy people. Both of them dropped everything at Derek’s name and immediately welcomed me into their castles. Does that seem reasonable?”
“I have made my opinions on that known,” Dorothy said.
“Strongly. Why should they? Is it because I’m so interesting?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m not interesting?”
“You are very interesting, dear,” Dorothy said, with deep interest in him, “but they wouldn’t know it.”
“What a nice answer. So it must be because of Derek.”
“Derek couldn’t have been that fascinating.”
“I will tell you about the two meetings. My conversation with Ms. Liu was pleasant and energetic but didn’t tell me much except that she is quite a politician. My conversation with Mr. Borchard was more centered on Derek, and had a few sharp points, but was also not very informative. But both of them were undeniably interested in me.”
“Just because of Derek.”
“Kind of somewhat. The congresswoman particularly asked what I knew about John Borchard and what Derek had told me about him. John Borchard very particularly asked about my selling books to Derek.”
“Selling them?”
“And if I would recommend any to him. That was the part where Oz was the most great and terrible. Those points in both conversations were actually rather tense, and I felt like I was supposed to do or say something.”
Dorothy stirred her coffee. “What would they want you to do?”
“Whatever I must have come for in the first place.”
“But you didn’t go for any particular reason.”
“Not really. Just to meet them.”
