“Yes,” Harper said bitterly, “Julius. You’ll notify Saunders at the FBI right away, won’t you?”
“Naturally. We settled that on the train.”
“Yes. We settled it on the train.”
“Don’t be sarcastic, Maxwell.”
Harper gave him a bleak look. “Of course you’ll tell Saunders the search has to be conducted with the utmost secrecy-”
Irritation made Augustine say in louder tones than he’d intended, “Don’t tell me how to deal with a security problem, damn it.”
In alarm Harper stared at him, then past him, and Augustine realized abruptly that his voice must have carried. He swung around and saw Claire and Elizabeth Miller and the domestic staff looking over at him, Claire with an expression of startled concern. But at least the rest of his aides had already moved off toward the guest house; only Justice still stood by the Cadillacs.
Augustine brought himself under control again, managed to smile at Claire and the others in an apologetic way, and looked back to Harper. “Mea culpa, Maxwell,” he said wearily. “We’ll talk later.”
Tight-lipped, Harper nodded. And turned and stalked down off the porch.
Augustine entered the house. All the window curtains were open in the massive beam-ceilinged family room, admitting intersecting funnels of sunlight in which dust motes tumbled against one another like tiny insects. Mica particles glittered in the stone face of the fireplace; the redwood wall paneling and the antique Victorian furniture glistened with wood polish. The effect was one of bright, cheerful elegance that at other times would have given him a warm feeling of complacency, of nostalgia for all the carefree days spent here with his father and with Claire. Now he merely glanced into the room, noted it without thought or emotion, as he would have noted a room in the house of a stranger, and walked away from it toward his study at the rear.
When he reached the study he saw that it too was bright with sunlight, and immediately went to the windows and drew the drapes. Like the family room, and the formal parlor and the library and the conference room and each of the five bedrooms, the study was paneled in redwood. Shelves and glass cabinets lined two of the walls and were stocked with more of his collection of railroadiana: postcards, company rule books, equipment manuals, rate guides, dining-car silver and china, uniform buttons and badges and patches. Against a third wall was a long, wide table on which sat a toy train layout-O-gauge track, miniature station houses, crossing signs and semaphores, working models of Ives and Lionel and Dorfan cars and locomotives from the early 1900s.
Augustine went to his desk, filled a calabash with tobacco, and then crossed to the toy train board and plugged in the electrical cord and threw the switch. Chewing on the curved stem of the pipe, he watched tiny signal lights flash and one of the Lionel locomotives pull a string of freight cars around the network of tracks.
Behind him, then, the study door opened and Claire’s voice said, “Nicholas?”
He turned. She came inside, closed the door and walked slowly to where he stood. Her eyes were steady on his face, probing, as they had been when he joined her on the Presidential Special and from time to time during the silent ride out from the station. She knew, of course, as she always seemed to know, that something was wrong. Outwardly she appeared calm and reserved-she would have made a brilliant actress, he thought, not for the first time-but he had been able to feel the tension in her when she held his hand inside the limousine, could almost see it in her as she faced him.
Quietly she said, “Do you want to talk now?”
“Yes. But I wish I could spare you from it.”
“Is it that bad?”
“It’s that bad.”
Her breath made a sibilant sound as she exhaled. “Tell me,” she said
He heard the faint chattering of the toy train speeding around the tracks, abruptly reached back to shut off the switch. The room became silent-an acute silence that seemed charged with a shrillness not quite perceived, like a shriek just beyond the range of human hearing.
“Wexford disappeared from the train last night,” he said.
“It appears as though he fell off the observation platform.”
Claire closed her eyes, seemed to sway for a moment; emotion flickered like shadows across her face. Then she shook herself visibly and regained her poise, and the emotion vanished as though behind a mask that had momentarily slipped. She said, “When did you find out about this?”
“Earlier this morning. Christopher searched the Presidential Special just before we arrived.”
“Who else have you told?”
“Just Maxwell. I’ve got to call Washington and talk to Saunders at the Bureau, have him instigate a search-”
“No,” Claire said, “not yet.”
“I know what you’re thinking. But there’s nothing we can do this time, no way we can begin to cover up. Don’t you think I’ve already considered that? The longer we delay, the worse it’s going to be when the facts come out.”
“The facts,” she said woodenly. “First Austin and now Julius. God help us.”
“Yes,” Augustine said, “God help us.”
She hugged herself. “What are we going to do, Nicholas?” “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve got to think. I need time to think, to make some sort of decision.”
Claire was silent for a moment, then she said softly, “You do have to make a decision now. You know that, don’t you.”
“Yes,” he said.
To her credit, she did not say anything more about it; they both knew what that decision involved, and she sensed that he needed to reach it alone, without any more discussion. She said only, “Would you like me to call Saunders in Washington?”
“That’s my responsibility.”
“Let me help you where I can, Nicholas. Please.”
“All right,” he said because he did not really want to do it himself. “You know what to tell him?”
“I know.” Claire came forward, kissed him tenderly on the cheek. Up close, her eyes were shiny and moistwindows, dark windows. “I’ll be in the house if you need me,” she said.
When he was alone again Augustine pulled a chair over in front of the board and switched the toy train back on and sat down to stare at it. Lights flashed, semaphores waved, signals changed as the miniature rolling stock traveled along the interconnected tracks. Going around and around in intricate loops. Going nowhere at all.
Five
Justice spent the morning in his room at the security quarters-drinking cup after cup of black coffee, pacing the room, sitting in one of the chairs, mechanically unpacking his suitcase after it was delivered by one of The Hollows’ staff. But by noon the passive waiting, and the caffeine, had set his nerves to jangling so badly that getting out of there became a matter of self-defense.
He wandered over to the manor house, circled it without seeing any sign of the President. As he walked toward the guest houses it occurred to him to seek out Maxwell Harper; he needed desperately to discuss his suspicions with someone and Harper was a logical choice. But then he thought: What if he’s the psychopath? It could be him; it could be anyone. Justice shivered faintly in the warm sunlight, veered away toward the patio and the swimming pool. He had never felt more alone in his life.
There was no one by the pool except for a maintenance man cleaning leaves from the water with a long- handled screen. Three gardeners worked among the flowers and shrubs in the surrounding gardens. An almost breathless hush seemed to envelop the ranch, as it almost always did in spring and summer. Even the cries of birds, the drone of insects was muted.
Justice walked past the tennis courts, through the wall of black oaks to the east fence, back along the fence behind the guest cottages. Through the east gate he saw what appeared to be three men on horseback, making their way along the northeast riding trail. He went across to the paddock. Three more horses moved lazily inside the
