The Hellfire Club

'Completely,' said Nora. This dopey woman, so bored that she made passes at married male guests, probably represented her last hope of getting the police to Shorelands. 'But please, call me Norma.'

'Why, thank you!'

'Maybe you could join us for a nightcap up at good old Salt Shaker after dinner,' Dart said. 'So much to talk about, so many avenues to explore.'

Marian's freckles slid sideways with a knowing twitch of the mouth. 'That depends on how much paperwork I can get done. I used to have an assistant, but the Honey House restoration ate up most of our budget.' Most of her bright, spurious eagerness reappeared. 'And of course we're very proud of the result. Didn't you just love it?'

'Who wouldn't?' Dart said. 'Can we get you up there tonight, Marian, or are we going to have to abduct you?'

'You'd be doing me a favor.' She sighed and pantomimed exhaustion. 'Would you like to see the rooms upstairs?'

Nora asked if they could talk to Agnes Brotherhood.

Marian closed her eyes and pressed a hand to her forehead. 'I forgot to check on that. I'd have to look in to see how she's doing. Why don't we go upstairs?'

'Does this VIP treatment extend to a sandwich before we start laying our hands on history?'

'A sandwich? Now?'

'Circumstances deprived me of my usual healthy breakfast. Could gobble up the Girl Scouts along with their cookies.'

Marian laughed. 'In that case, we'd better take care of you. How about you, Norma?'

Nora said she could wait for dinner.

Dart grasped her wrist, killing her hopes of getting to a telephone while he gobbled up any nearby Girl Scouts. 'When it comes to appetite, Norm Desmond has never been found wanting.'

'I wouldn't think so,' Marian said. 'Let's see what damage you can do to our kitchen.' An unmarked door at the right side of the marble stairs opened onto a steep flight of iron steps. 'You'll be all right on these, with your… ?' She touched her knee.

'All is well.'

Marian started down the staircase. 'Would you mind if I asked how… ?'

'Nam. Pesky land mine. Your brother was there, wasn't he?'

She looked back up at him. 'How did you know about my brother?'

'Handsome picture on your bulletin board. I gather he was killed in action. Hope you will accept my condolences, even after all this time. As a former officer, I regret the loss of every single man in that tragic conflict.'

'Thank you. You seem so young to have been an officer in Vietnam.'

He barked out a laugh. 'I'm told I was one of the youngest officers to serve in Vietnam, if not the youngest.' He sighed. 'Truth is, we were all boys, every one of us.'

Nora felt like pushing him down the stairs.

'I'm going to make you the best sandwich you ever had in your life,' Marian said.

'I have the distinct impression that you went to a Catholic girls' school. Please don't tell me I'm mistaken.'

'How can you tell?' Marian began to descend the clanging stairs again, looking up at him with the smile of a woman who had never heard a compliment she didn't like.

'Two kinds of women hatch out of Catholic girls' schools. One is sincere, hardworking, witty, and polite. Best manners in the world. The other is unconventional, intellectual, bohemian. They're witty, too. Tend to be a bit rebellious.'

At the bottom of the stairs Marian waited for Dart and Nora to come down into a good-sized kitchen with a red-tiled floor, a long wooden chopping block, glass-fronted cabinets, and a gas range. There was a teasing half smile on her face. 'Which kind am I?'

'You fall into the best category of all. Combination of the other two.'

'No wonder Lily enjoyed your tour.' Smiling, Marian opened a cabinet, took down a plate and a glass, and opened the refrigerator. 'Dinner is going to be one of our specials, so I'd better let that remain a surprise, but here's some roast beef. I could make you a sandwich with this wholewheat bread. Sound good?'

'Yum yum. You got some mustard, mayo, maybe a couple slices of Swiss cheese to go with that?'

'I think so.' She bent down to root around on a tower shelf, giving Dart a good view of her bottom.

'Any soup?'

She laughed and looked at Nora. 'This man knows what he wants. Minestrone or gazpacho?'

'Minestrone. Gazpacho isn't soup.'

Marian began pulling things out of the refrigerator.

Dart was wandering around and inspecting the kitchen. 'Norma can give you a hand.'

'Once an officer…' Nora said.

Marian told her where to find the can opener. Nora picked up a saucepan and poured the soup into it. After she had set the pan on the stove, she looked up to find Dart staring into her eyes. He glanced at her bag, which she had dropped on the counter, back at her, and then at a spot above the counter behind Marian's back. The handles of at least a dozen knives protruded from a wooden holder fastened to the wall. Dart smiled at her.

Marian took a bag of leftover lettuce from the refrigerator and dropped it on the counter. 'Men are amazing,' she said. 'Where do they put it all?'

'Norman puts it in his hollow leg,' Nora said. Standing behind the other woman, she looked at the knife holder and shrugged. She could not steal a knife without Marian's noticing.

Nearly undressing Marian with a smile. Dart said, 'Might some beer have found its way into the refrigerator?'

That's a distinct possibility.'

'Don't like invading strange refrigerators. Let's hunker down, survey the vintages.'

Marian glanced at Nora, who was stirring the soup. She set down her knife and moved toward the refrigerator, where Dart beamed at her, rubbing his hands.

' 'Open thy vault most massy, most fearsome, Madame Ware,'' Dart said, quoting something Nora did not recognize.

'I know that!' Marian cried. 'It's from Night Journey, the part near the end where Pippin meets Madame Lyno-Wyno Ware. He has to talk that way because, um…'

'Because the Cup Bearer told him he had to, or she wouldn't tell the truth.'

'Yes! And the vault disappoints him because it's only a metal box, but when she opens it up he sees that inside it's the size of his old house, and Madame Ware says… something about a book, the mind…' She snapped her fingers twice. 'They're bigger on the inside.'

''My vault, like a woman's heart or reticule, is larger within than without. Even a little pippin was once held within a seed.''

Nora had been backing away from the stove and was now nearly within reaching distance of the knife rack.

'Right! That's it!' Marian spun around and pointed a shapely, freckled finger at Nora. 'See? I'm not completely ignorant about Hugo Driver. We can work together.'

'Marian,' Dart said, an impatient edge in his voice, 'open the massy vault, will you?'

She turned her back on Nora and made an elaborate business of opening the refrigerator.

'Hunker, Marian. Can you hunker?'

'With the best of them.' She squatted down before the crowded shelves knee to knee with Dart. 'Behold the beer.'

'I don't see any beer.'

She leaned over to point, in the process brushing a breast against Dart's arm. 'Are you a Corona kind of guy?' Marian asked.

Dart glanced at Nora over the top of the other woman's head, and she stepped back and lifted the first knife out of the holder.

'In weak moments.' Dart looked at the hefty, workmanlike carving knife in Nora's hand, nodded minutely, and