“No, I haven’t. It’s lurking at this moment in the basket with the rolls. Besides, Sid always likes to read it first. Houdini didn’t perform after all then?”

“There was a horrible accident in the act preceding his,” I said. “The illusion was supposed to be sawing a girl in half. But something went wrong and she really was sliced with the saw.”

“Good God,” Gus said. “Seriously hurt?”

I found it hard to force out the words. “She was not expected to live, I’m afraid. The manager stopped the show and sent everyone home.”

“How awful for you. You need a dose of Sid’s coffee to restore you to sorts.”

In truth I didn’t need a dose of Sid’s coffee. She made it in the Turkish fashion, abominably strong and more like drinking thick sludge. But my friends’ cheerful company more than made up for the coffee. I followed Gus across the street to her house on the other side of our little backwater. It was a charming haven of twenty brownstone houses set in a cobbled alleyway and gave the feeling of being miles away from the traffic and bustle of Greenwich Avenue and the Jefferson Market opposite.

Gus flung open her front door. “Sid, dearest. Here she is, and with such a dramatic tale to tell.”

We went down the long hallway and through to the kitchen at the back of the house. They had built a conservatory onto it and Sid was sitting in a white wicker rocking chair, the picture of country elegance. I should probably explain that Sid’s real name was Elena Goldfarb. She and Gus led the most delightfully bohemian existence, with Gus’s inheritance to keep them in that lifestyle. Their house was always full of artists, writers, actors—and extremely heady for a girl who until recently had lived in a primitive Irish cottage and whose entertainment had been the occasional dance at the church hall.

Sid jumped up as we arrived. She was wearing a red silk kimono with a large golden dragon curling over it and the effect with her black bobbed hair was stunningly oriental.

“Molly!” she cried, opening her arms to me. “We see you too seldom these days and now you’ve come to cheer up our drab little lives with a dramatic tale.”

I had to laugh at this statement. “Drab little lives? I don’t know of any lives less drab. Who else would convert their living room into a Mongolian yurt?”

Sid looked surprised. “Well, we decided we didn’t really want to go to Mongolia after all. Too cold and windy and bleak, you know. So we decided to have the Mongolian experience at home. Of course we’ve had to do without the horses galloping over the plain, but there are riding stables nearby . . .”