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.”

He gave me the cake. While I ate, he cut his own cake, poured himself a glass of iced tea from the pitcher, and settled himself heavily in the armchair. I had forgotten about his leg. I stared at it now. He stretched the bones out before him, stiff as a pole and just as wasted. He had struck me as pleasingly lean in December, sturdy but not especially muscular. Now he was downright gaunt. His cheekbones sprang from his face. On his jaw, there was a long scar, still red.

I nodded at his knee. “Speaking of injuries.”

“It’s much better, thank you. All things considered.”

“All things?”

“Look here, there’s nothing on earth so tedious as listening to somebody explain the various points of his general health in full detail. I’m alive and whole. All’s well that ends well.”

“Did they ever catch the fellow who did it?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t believe they did.”

“It’s disgraceful.”

“What, the fact that I was attacked? Or that they haven’t caught the scoundrel?”

“Well, both.”