“Introductions. I’ll go first. My name is Miles Merda. Merda with an ‘e’. Representing French interests.” He strolled over past the wig-man and the tall black woman to warm his small hands before the fire. “I am thirty-three years old and at birth was struck with a malady that at first would appear to doom my life yet has worked out perfectly for the occupation I have chosen. Or, let us say, has chosen me. I am an expert at appearing to be what I am not. I can’t say the same for some of you.” He cast a bemused gaze upon the pockmarked brawler. “All right, then. Next?”

No one spoke. The Owl took an empty chair and Matthew thought he was being watched, the Owl trying to place the face beneath the makeup.

“Come now, don’t be shy!” Merda chided. “Tall lady! You don’t look the shy type.”

She smiled, but it was tight and held no humor. “Very well,” she said, in a rather husky and well-educated, English-inflected voice with another deeper singsong accent behind it. Matthew had the impression that such a voice could be quite beguiling. “I am known as Lioness Sauvage,” she went on. “Representing a consortium of African interests. I am a free woman and intend to remain so, and I will say that I have killed several men to gain that status.”

“Bravo for you!” Merda grinned again. “My, you’re a big one. You wouldn’t fancy a small quick one, would you?”

“Too small for me,” Lioness answered.

“You never know.”

“Oh,” she said, “I know.”

“I turn from that crushing rejection to you, sir.” Merda lifted a chin toward Victor. “Your name and affiliation?”

“Victor. As in ‘the’,” came the response. “Affiliated with parts unknown.”

“A mysterious man,” said Merda. He shrugged. “As you please. You two! Dressed in your best, I see. Pardon me if I take my eyeballs out to shield them against the glare. But I think I must know who you are! Count … what is your name?”

“Pellegar,” Julian said.

“Oh, let’s be friendly and do Christian names! Don’t mean to offend, but you may call me Miles, if I may call you—?” He waited.

Matthew had a start. His mind raced. Back in the Grand Suite … had Pellegar’s first name been mentioned by—

“Karlo,” Julian said, and only Matthew could hear the small rush of relief in Julian’s voice, that he’d remembered Brux saying Karlo! Sie haben unsere fehlenden Falle gefunden? whatever the rest of it meant. “But you may refer to me as Your Excellency,” Julian added. “Baron Brux does not speak English, only the Prussian language.”

“Well, what’s his first name?”

“Baron,” Julian replied, and having established his haughty bastardom to this room of like spirits he was dismissed by Miles Merda with a wave of the diminutive hand.

“You, sir?” Merda inquired of the red beard.