“Seems I’m about to enter paid employment. If all goes well.”

“Congratulations. Splendid news.”

“You don’t seem surprised.”

“I might have made a few inquiries regarding your intentions here,” he said.

I snapped my fingers. “Jack! That old so-and-so. I might’ve known.”

“I’m afraid I can’t reveal my sources.”

“There’s no need. I can practically smell him on you. Say . . .”

Thorpe lifted an eyebrow and stared at me patiently. Behind him, the street was empty, except for the British Colonial rising brilliantly against the sky. The air smelled stickily of night blossom, of the nearby ocean, of the lingering afternoon ether of automobile exhaust. There’s a particular odor to a Nassau evening, a perfume I’ve never encountered since. I wrapped my hands around my pocketbook and said, “I’ll bet that was you, wasn’t it? That drink the other night.”

“I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about.”

“Jack said you were a shy kind of fellow.”

“Jack was quite right. I’m practically a recluse.”

“I wouldn’t say shy. The way you swooped in, back there in the library. Plucked me out of Wenner-Gren’s talons. The way you handled that fellow on the airplane.”

Thorpe squinted upward again, judging the stars. His hands remained in his pockets, causing his wide shoulders to hunch slightly. “Well, what else was I to do? Allow the blackguard to continue occupying my seat?”

“Why not? Less trouble that way.”

His gaze dropped back to my face, and I swear to God, he peered right through my skin and bone to the matter beneath. Those placid eyes. I couldn’t move. I stood there like a fool, soaking it all up, the shining spectacles, the eyes and the pale skin, the hazy moon, the bare head glinting. “Tell me something, Mrs. Randolph,” he said quietly. “What brings you to Nassau? And don’t tell me some rubbish about your dead husband. We both know that’s not the case.”

I opened my mouth and made—to my eternal shame—nothing more than a strangled gasp.

“As I thought. You’re a terrible liar, Mrs. Randolph. Not cut out for this business at all.”

“And what business is that?”

“You tell me,” he said.

I tucked my pocketbook under my arm. “I’m a journalist. Here to scoop the scoop of the century, if I can find it.”

“Some kind of scandal, you mean? Parting the curtain of the Windsor boudoir for a breathless Metropolitan audience?”

“Now see here. How did you know the name of the magazine?”

“As I said, I made a few inquiries.”

I threw up my hands. “Jack.”

“Jack knows my intentions are entirely honorable.”

“Honorable. There’s a pact, you know, an unspoken pact of discretion between girl and bartender—”

“Don’t blame Jack. I was persistent, and what’s more, I pay well.”