“Just like that.” I snap my fingers. “I think he was trying to impress me. You know, to show off that he wasn’t just some stuffy diplomat. Also, he was drunk. He spent a lot of time drunk. I think that’s how he dealt with everything, you know? Because men of his class, loyalty’s just bred into them. I’ve always thought that in his head, he was able to justify spying on his own country because it would bring forward the revolution and make the world just and peaceful under worldwide communism, et cetera, but down below he was all torn apart because he’s betraying not just the United States of America, but his own friends. The people he works with and drinks with.”

Fox says nothing to all that. Just stands there at the window until I can’t bear it any longer. I stub out my cigarette and announce that since the sun’s officially up, I’m going to mix myself a Bloody Mary.

When I return, he’s still standing where I left him, hands shoved into his pockets. He says he’s underestimated me.

I plop myself back down on the sofa and light another cigarette. “Of course you did. You’re a man.”

“It won’t happen again,” he says grimly.

“Oh, don’t kick yourself. It’s perfectly natural.” My pocketbook lies on the sofa table, next to the cigarettes. I reach for it—open it wide—draw out the postcard and the letter. “Perhaps I should have given these to you sooner, but I needed to know you were a man I could trust.”

Fox looks greedily at my hand. I hold it out, and he plucks the papers free and frames his fingers delicately around the edges while he examines each one, first the postcard and then the letter in its envelope. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the expression on his face—such as it is—suggests something like relief.

“It’s been opened already.”

“No kidding, Sherlock.”

He ignores me, of course—just lifts the flap of the envelope with so delicate a touch, you simply can’t imagine those fingers gripping an object so vulgar as a pigskin. Holding the extreme corner of one side of the letter, he eases it from its wrapper like a whisper and spreads it out on the sofa table. He bends over the paper and reads Iris’s words. Then he picks up the envelope and examines that, too, every letter and especially the postmark, before at last he looks up at me.

“Do you mind if I take this with me?”

“I certainly do mind.”

“We’ll return it once we’ve had a chance to examine it in the lab.”

“In the lab? What kind of lab? Where is it?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say.”