“Are you making trouble again, Truell?” he said in a loud, cock-of-the-roost voice. It had been some time since we had talked; in truth, we had been avoiding each other the past few weeks.

“I hope so,” I said. “I’m certainly working hard at it.”

“And what muck are we raking this week?”

His question made me instantly suspicious. He was after something. He leaned toward me and lowered his voice to the deep register that signified that he wanted to discuss serious business.

“The French ambassador called me today,” he confided. “He was very upset, which is unlike him. He seems to think that you’re about to run some crazy CIA fantasy about the French in China. I advised him to call you, but he said he didn’t know you, so I told him I would have a word.”

“Well, now you’ve done that. You’ve had a number of words, in fact. So your mission is accomplished.”

Bowman took a step back. He hadn’t expected that from me. “What shall I tell the ambassador when he asks me what you’re doing?”

“Tell him he can read the story in the Mirror when it’s published. It will only cost him fifty cents.”

“What’s the matter with you?” he said sharply. “Why are you being so rude?”

“Not rude, just careful. I’m working on a story about French bribery in China, as the ambassador undoubtedly knows. I put in a call to the Élysée yesterday asking for comment. Someone in Paris evidently called him in a panic, and now he’s calling you. Take my advice, Arthur: don’t get involved in this.”

Bowman walked away. He seemed shaken by the conversation. It was the first time I had ever talked with him that way. In his mind I was a kid, someone who had always treated him with due deference. Something had changed, and he seemed to understand what it was.

I went back to writing my story. By that evening I had completed a draft that wove together what Rubino had given me and what I had been able to stitch together from my own reporting. I gave it to Marcus’s secretary the next morning to pass on to the great man. He summoned me an hour later and closed the door. “It’s certainly interesting,” Marcus said, “but it has some problems. I asked Arthur Bowman to read it, too, and he agrees. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I do mind, Bob. I gave you the piece in confidence, because you’re my editor. I didn’t think you’d convene a committee. Why did you show it to Bowman?”