The Hellfire Club

'This is wonderful. I can show you Miss Weatherall's photo archive, her private papers - really anything you might care to see - and tonight you must have dinner with Mrs Nolan, Margaret Nolan, the director of the trust, and me in the dining room. It would be such a treat for us. We'll have a splendid dinner, we do that for our literary guests, something off the original Shorelands menu. Margaret and I love the opportunity to re-create the old atmosphere. Does that sound like something you'd like to do?'

'Honored,' Dart said.

'Margaret will be thrilled.' Marian looked as if she wanted to give Dart a hug. 'We'd better take care of the paperwork so I can start organizing matters. Would you come into my office?'

'Putty in your freckled little hands,' Dart said.

She gave him an uncertain glance before deciding that what he had said was hilarious. 'My freckles used to make me feel self-conscious, but I don't think about them anymore. Sometimes, I confess, I'd still like to cover them up, if I could find a cosmetic that worked.'

'I could help you with that,' Dart said. 'No problem at all.'

'Do you mean that?'

Dart shrugged and nodded. The young woman looked at Nora.

'He means it,' Nora said.

'Artists are so… extraordinary. So… unexpected.'

'I'm a little more in touch with my feminine side than the average guy,' Dart said.

Marian brought them through the door marked PRIVATE, down a functional hallway to an unmarked door, and into a tiny office with a window on the entrance. A photograph of a young soldier in uniform had been pinned to the bulletin board. She moved behind the desk, took a form from the top drawer, and smiled at Dart. 'Mr Desmond, since I suppose you will be filling this out, perhaps you should take the chair? I wish I had two, but as you can see, there's no room.'

Dart examined the form. Grinning, he took a pen from her desk and began writing.

Marian looked brightly up at Nora. 'Now that I know who you are, I'm so glad we're putting you and Mr Desmond in Pepper Pot. Pepper Pot is where Robert Frost stayed when he was Miss Weatherall's guest in 1932.'

'And where Merrick Favor and Austryn Fain stayed in 1938.'

Marian tilted her chin, and her hair swung to the back of her neck. If the poetic Mr Desmond appreciated freckles, she intended to give him a good view. 'I don't think I know those names.'

'My wife has a special interest in the summer of 1938.' He smiled as if to suggest that wives must be expected to have their foibles, and Marian smiled back in indulgent understanding.

'We'll have to see what we can do to help you.' She read what Dart had written on the form. 'Oh, isn't that cute. Your names are Norma and Norman.'

'Language poetry strikes again.'

She smiled and gave her head a flirtatious shake. Norman Desmond was a hoot. 'There's a tour beginning in forty minutes, which would give you more than enough time to settle in. Afterwards, I'll take you into the parts of the house normally off-limits. We're not really a hotel, so we can't provide valet or room service, but if you have any special needs, I'll do my best.'

Dart turned a rueful smile to Nora. 'We're gonna have to tell her, Norm.'

Nora had no idea what he thought they had to tell Marian Cullinan. 'I guess so.'

'Truth is, we don't have our bags. Stolen out of our car at a rest stop this morning. All we have is in Norma's handbag and what we're wearing.'

Marian looked stricken. 'Why, that's terrible!' She ripped a sheet off a yellow pad. 'I'll have Tony pick up some toothbrushes and toothpaste in town, and whatever else you need. A razor? Shaving soap? Tell me what you need.'

'Thankfully, we have all the toiletries we need, but there are some other items I'd be grateful for.'

'Fire away,' Marian said.

'We enjoy a nightcap in the evenings. Could your lad pick up a liter of Absolut vodka? And we'd like an ice bucket to go with that.'

'Sounds sensible to me.' She wrote. 'Anything else?'

'I'd like two more items, but I don't want you to think they're strange.'

She positioned her pen.

'A twelve-foot length of clothesline and a roll of duct tape.'

She looked up to see if this was another of his little jokes.

'Doesn't have to be clothesline,' Dart said. 'Any smooth rope about a quarter inch in diameter is okay.'

'We aim to please.' She wrote down his requests. 'We do have a lot of rope coiled up in the bathroom down the hall. The workmen store it there, even though I've asked and asked…'

'Too rough,' Dart said.

'Would you mind if I asked… ?'

'Medical supplies,' Dart said. 'Repair work.'

'I don't quite…'

He tapped his right knee. 'Not the leg I was born with, alas.'

'Excuse me. It should all be in your room by the time you're finished with the tour.' She looked stricken again. 'Unless you need something right away.'

'No hurry. The old joint's had a bit of a workout, little loose, little floppy, and I want to stiffen it up later.'

'Our pleasure. And you, Mrs Desmond? Is there anything I can do for you? I hope I might call you Norma.' She gave Nora a closer look. 'Are you all right?'

'Are some of the people who were at Shorelands at the end of the thirties still here? If so, I'd like to speak to them.'

Brilliant smile. 'Lily Melville is a fixture here, and she was a maid in those days. When the trust came into being, Lily was so helpful that we put her on the staff. You might have seen her leading a group through the lounge.'

'White hair? Five two?' Dart asked. 'Pink Geoffrey Beene knockoff, cultured pearls?'

'Why, yes.' She was delighted with him. 'Norman, you are an amazing man.'

'Sweet old darling,' Dart said.

'Well, she's going to get a kick out of you, but don't let on you know it isn't a real Geoffrey Beene.'

Dart held up his hand as if taking a vow. Nora broke in on their rapport. 'Is Lily Melville the only person left from that time?'

'Another former maid, Agnes Brotherhood, is still with us. She's been under the weather lately, but it might be possible for you to talk to her.'

'I'd like that,' Nora said.

'Hugo Driver,' Marian said, pointing at Nora. 'I knew there was something about 1938. So you are a Hugo Driver person.' She smiled in a way which may not have been entirely pleasant. 'We don't see as many Driver people as you might expect. As a rule, they tend not to be much like ordinary readers.'

'I'm not only a Driver person,' Nora said. 'I'm a Bill Tidy, Creeley Monk, and Katherine Mannheim person, too.'

Marian gave her a doubtful look.

'Fascinating group,' Dart said. 'Class of '38. Tremendous interest of Norma's.'

'You're involved in a research project.'

'According to Norma,' Dart said, 'Night Journey wouldn't exist without the Shorelands experience. Essential to the book.'

'That is incredibly interesting.' Marian pushed herself back from the desk and folded her hands in front of heir chin. 'Given Driver's popularity, we ought to be doing more with him anyhow. And if we can claim that Shorelands and these people you mention are central to Night Journey, that's the way to do it.' She stroked her perfect jawline and gazed out of the window, thinking. 'I can see a piece in the Sunday Times magazine. I can certainly see a piece in the book review. If we got that, we could put on Hugo Driver weekends. How about an annual Driver conference? It could work. I'll have to run this past