Then they sat in silence for a while, watching a spider between the tendrils of fern. It was a clear, classically beautiful summer day. But since returning from the front Gray had found that he did not like open spaces. He liked small rooms with thick walls.

"For whatever it's worth, Nicky, I wasn't the one who brought you here. It came from the top."

"The top of what? Your fop organization?"

"As a matter of fact the Admiralty is involved."

"Oh for Godsakes, what did she do? Sleep with the Kaiser?"

Southerland laid the newspaper aside and stood up. "Actually it has something to do with what happened the other day on the Somme."

There were two paths extending through the garden, and they now took the darker one between shaggy hedgerows and tangled vines. Past a rotting pergola lay skeletons of lawn chairs and an overgrown tennis court—reminders that there hadn't always been a war.

"The tally still isn't in," Southerland said blandly, "but as far as we can tell the count is up to fifty thousand dead and wounded. Now obviously one mustn't jump to conclusions, but clearly something went wrong."

Gray smirked, then, just as blandly, "Oh I can tell you what went wrong, old man. The whole affair was a stinking mess from the start. First they laid the shells on the surface, then they tried to cut the wire with shrapnel. Beyond that no one had the faintest idea what they were doing."

"Still, there's a notion about that if the element of secrecy had been preserved. . . ."

Gray stopped, turning with an odd smile. "Oh, I get it. Oh, this is really too marvelous. You're going to pin it on a bloody spy. You're going to lay it on Zelle."

"There are indications, Nicky—"

"Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure you've got a whole truck of filthy indications."

"She specifically mentioned the event in conversation with one of our people last June. That is, she made a specific reference to an offensive over the river three weeks before the attack."

"So? Everybody knew it was coming. Even the Huns knew it was coming."

"Yes, that's precisely the point."

They had reached the paddock, and here too were vague testaments of better English days: a tennis ball rotting in the grass, a rope dangling from a laurel, a disintegrating handkerchief.

"It's the little things that concern us, Nicky. The pattern of small events over the years."

Gray tossed a burning cigarette into the grass. With any luck the whole world would catch fire. "What are you talking about?"

Southerland stepped closer, speaking quietly. "Why do you suppose Spangler bought that portrait of her . . . your famous portrait of her?"

Gray scowled. "How the hell should I know?"

"A memento? A small reminder of the woman who destroyed his best agent?"

"Maybe."

"Or was it simply that he was also fascinated by her? Refresh my memory. How exactly did they meet?"