"Ambivalent. Distressed for Margaretha. But, after all, they might well have arrested one of my valuable agents instead of an exotic dancer. That would not be a good tradeoff."

Gray had moved to the window, drawing back the edge of the curtain. The street below was like a black river between cliffs of tenements. Behind him Spangler was still smoking, elbows resting easily on the arm of his chair.

"Despite your memories of that prison," he now said, "I am not actually a callous man. Indeed, there are those who find me positively sentimental. Look here, what can I possibly do for the woman? Offer them my word as a German officer and gentleman that she was never my spy? Petition Charles Dunbar or Georges Ladoux? I think there would be a slight problem of credibility, don't you?"

Gray had crossed the room again to the sideboard, poured another two fingers of whiskey and tossed it down. His right hand still held the automatic, but the hand felt numb, useless.

Then, turning and raising the weapon again: "Tell me about the telegrams. Tell me about what you cabled to von Kalle."

Spangler braced himself against the table to rise to his feet. "Come into the bedroom, Nicholas. I want to show you something."

"The telegrams—"

"No, first let me show you. Otherwise you'll never believe me. Come into the bedroom, please."

The bedroom lay in darkness off the sitting room. It was a long and narrow plaster cell with only the barest necessities: bed, dresser, reading lamp.

"Of course I'm basically a German monster," Spangler was saying as he groped for the light. "And of course I took advantage of the woman. But that doesn't mean I never cared for her, or continue to care in my own peculiar fashion—as you can plainly see."

Except that the light was so feeble Gray saw only a hint of something, a thin memory of a haunting face on the wall.

"There." Spangler's voice was a whisper. "There, you see? I still have it. Purchased more than a decade ago from poor Rolland Michard's estate, and I still have it—your very first portrait of our dancer."

He had even hung the thing opposite the bed, no doubt to inspire dreams.

"And as for your telegrams, Nicky, I suggest you look elsewhere, because I never sent a telegram regarding Mata Hari. I may be a German beast, but even German beasts have certain sentimental feelings when it comes to a woman like Zelle."