“Pelletier says you sat in on the committee’s beginnings at Flora’s.” I spoke flatly, as if what I were saying were undisputed truth, not my own unverifiable guesses “You say this is an unpublished manuscript.” Llewellyn tapped my note with his index finger. “How did you come to read it?”

“The same way Marc Whitby did-by going through Pelletier’s papers at the University of Chicago. It sounds as though Flora’s was an exciting place-meatpackers and novelists rubbing shoulders with dancers and journalists, a miniature Greenwich Village on the near West Side. Calvin Bayard dropped in from time to time, so you got to know him. And ultimately he guaranteed the loans that allowed you to abandon that hand press over there and move to real machines. What did you have to do in return, Mr. Llewellyn?”

“I fail to see how that concerns you, young woman.”

“Did he ask you to make a contribution to ComThought’s legal defense fund? And if so, why should that be a secret?”

“Again, this is no concern of yours. You come in here with tales of Armand Pelletier and Miss Ballantine, but you were hired, I believe, to find Marcus Whitby’s killer, and, if I’m not mistaken, Mr. Whitby died last week, not in 1957.”

I smiled evilly. “He died because of what he’d learned about 1957, about the relations among you and Calvin Bayard and Armand Pelletier. I’m tracking those down.”

His pressed his lips together in a tight angry line, but said, “Armand Pelletier made Calvin’s fortune. Not that book alone, that famous Tale of Two Countries, but he got Calvin the entree to the kind of authors Bayard Publishing needed if Calvin was going to turn a stodgy family firm into a success. If Pelletier was enthusiastic about something, Calvin was bound to be there, too. I never knew if Calvin was protecting his investment in Pelletier, or if he really was the eager puppy dog he acted around Pelletier. After all, Armand had been shot in Spain-that counted for a lot in the crowd they hung out with. I was a young and earnest journalist, Pelletier thought he could patronize me, Calvin tagged along. I paid back those loans. If you’ve dug enough dirt to find that Calvin secured them, you know that I repaid them.”

“Yes, sir. But Mr. Bayard exacted a quid pro quo, which startled even some of the starchy old ladies in New Solway, who didn’t share his enthusiasm for your enterprise.”

“And if he did, you think I should tell you?” His voice was level, but a pulse throbbed in his temple.

“I’ll find it out,” I said. “Geraldine Graham-do you remember her from those days at Flora’s?-may make up her mind to speak. Or I’ll find out from Renee Bayard. Or-someone else. People like to talk, and when they get old, they get to be like Olin Taverner-they don’t want their secrets to die with them.”

A corner of his mouth lifted into a sneer. “Oh, I remember Geraldine Graham. She was like so many rich white girls of the forties. And the fifties. And the current age. Hot bored things who look for the secret thrill the black man can provide. In her case, it was the Red man, the Communist man, but the spice of feeling the sweat of black workers gave it an added zest for her. If she decides to talk to you about those days -I will be very surprised.”