Now, I had slept in a hospital bed twice before in my life. Once when I was eight, to get rid of a trick appendix. The other time in Amarillo, Texas, for a reason I’d rather not disclose, if you don’t mind. I didn’t quite see why I should have to sleep in one tonight, although I didn’t quite see how I was supposed to get home to Cable Beach through a riot, either. All things considered, I supposed I should make the best of things. To that end, I settled back in my blue gown with a magazine and a glass of iced tea. But I wasn’t made for settling, apparently, because my attention kept wandering to the window and its partial view of the harbor, and how I might get my hands on my camera, and what the devil was going on out there, anyway. Whether New Providence Island stood in a state of insurrection, or whether paler heads had prevailed.

Then the knock arrived.

“Come in,” I said.

A coppery head poked around the corner of the door.

“Hullo, there,” said Thorpe. “I’ve brought cake.”

The cake in question turned out to be Veryl’s own rum cake. I shrieked and asked how he got it. He said he’d stopped by the bungalow to make sure I was all right, hadn’t done anything stupid like ridden my bicycle straight into a riot, and luckily Veryl was there, packing me a few things, and explained the whole affair. Naturally—gentleman that he was—he offered to convey Veryl to her home and cake and toothbrush to yours truly in her hospital bed.

All this he told me as he took the cake and the plates from the basket, like a picnic, and put them on the table, maneuvering about expertly with his stiff leg and his cane.

“Well, kind sir, I simply don’t know how to thank you,” I said.

“We’ll think of something. Cake?”

He raised the knife and held it above the ring of rum cake Veryl had baked the day before. A broken ring, because I’d already eaten a slice last night. Can you blame me? That rum cake was a fever dream of vanilla and sugared rum, and I mean rum. Just sniffing it could render you blotto. I watched Thorpe sink the knife delicately into the sponge. For some reason, his knuckles transfixed me. They were large and bony and—compared to the rest of him, anyway—rather ugly. And yet they maneuvered that knife with tremendous precision. A cake surgeon. He laid a nice, pudgy slice on a plate, added a fork, and lifted an eyebrow.

“Can you manage it?”

“Can I eat a slice of cake, you mean? I believe so.”

“Because you’re looking pale.”

I roused myself to a sitting position and handed him the glass of iced tea. “Give me the damned cake, please.”