Should you decide to prolong your stay in Nassau after all, may I humbly bring to your notice a convenient cottage on Cable Beach, available to let on reasonable terms, local landlord.

Yours sincerely,

A. de Marigny

Part II

Lulu

December 1943

(London)

Miss Thorpe’s flat. Around the corner from the Basil Hotel it isn’t, quite, although that might have something to do with the funny route taken there by Miss Thorpe, turning corners and doubling back, until we arrive at a house surrounded on both sides by empty lots, scattered with rubble.

“The Blitz,” she says simply, jumping up the steps. She’s got her key out already and shoves it into the lock. Thank God, it opens readily. She steps back and motions me through.

“Third floor,” she calls softly.

I start up the steps while the sound of the bolt clangs behind me. Then her footsteps, tripping along as if the climb is nothing at all. We reach the landing and a single door, which she unlocks and opens, ushering me past into a hallway that smells of damp wool, just exactly as if I’m the ordinary kind of guest who drops by for tea and crumpets in the afternoon, pinky finger primed for business.

“If you’ll hang your coat and hat on the hook, there,” she says. “The radiator should dry them out. I do hope you haven’t left anything important at the hotel.”

“I haven’t. Although that fellow back there thinks I have, which should keep him busy for a bit. Assuming I haven’t killed him.”

“You haven’t,” she says dryly. “That man’s indestructible. I’ll put the kettle on, shall I? You do drink tea?”

“When I must.”

She disappears through a narrow doorway into what I presume is some sort of kitchen. I hang my hat first, then the coat. Before I turn away, I pat the left breast, and the stiffness of the paper beneath, tucked inside the inner pocket, is like a miracle. “Sit,” calls Miss Thorpe, over her shoulder, and I sit, I simply collapse on one of the four chairs around the table, and it’s only then that I realize my arms and legs are shaking, my breath is so shallow in my lungs that I can’t seem to get any air. I lay my head on the wood. The room’s dim, because of the blackout and because you’re not allowed to use excess electricity around here, every ounce of energy must go to the war effort. The radiator should dry them out, Miss Thorpe said confidently, but if the radiator’s doing its duty at the moment, I’ll be damned. The atmosphere inside the flat is hardly any warmer or dryer than the atmosphere outside.