"Well, at first I thought nothing of him. I mean, it wasn't as if he'd been the first. But then it began to dawn on me that this was different. This one was for keeps." He shifted his gaze from an early crayon to another flawed sketch in charcoal. "I say, is that also new?"

Gray mumbled something. His throat was suddenly dry, breath a little short. "Did you ever meet him?"

"Hmm?"

"The German. Did you ever meet him?"

Dunbar couldn't seem to take his eyes off that charcoal. "Had dinner with them both. Not many laughs, though. Margaretha had a headache, you see. And this Rudy didn't drink, or at least didn't show it. I seem to recall that he talked about horses . . . Then, in the morning, they were gone. All gone. Care to see her goodbye note?"

Gray did not answer, did not set down his glass now that the whisky was gone ... all gone, like Zelle . . . "What was he like?"

Dunbar turned. "You mean the German?"

"Yes, what was he like?"

"I don't know . . . quiet."

"Did he speak English?"

"Yes."

"And French?"

"Yes."

"Flawlessly? Both English and French flawlessly?"

"Nicholas, I'm not sure—"

"Flawlessly?"

Dunbar took a step back, then another. "Yes, now that you mention it, I suppose he did. But I'm afraid that I—"

"And was his last name Spangler? Rudolph Spangler?"

"Yes, but how—"

"Because I knew him. Knew of him . . . from a long time ago."

The night never returned to normal, and if nothing else they would ever forget the storm. It seemed to break from above the rain, directly over the city. By dawn the back streets were littered with debris, the smaller gardens a ruin.

It was very close to winter the day that Dunbar finally returned to England. There were icicles suspended from the water pumps, the breath of waiting horses in the air. The station was also very cold, which seemed to inhibit conversation.

They spoke calmly now about Zelle while waiting for departure in a coffee house above the crowds. Dunbar in particular seemed comforted by certain theories of the day concerning hysterical women. "Read Freud," he said. "Read anyone. The woman is a classic case. Venus with Medusan tendencies." Their parting words were mumbled goodbyes on the platform.

After Dunbar had gone Gray spent at least another hour at a table with a beer, watching the locomotives. Then at last he joined a disembarking crowd in search of something else to drink. On returning to his room he busied himself with small tasks . . . washing a few plates, tossing out empty bottles, then tearing those portraits of Zelle off the wall and putting them in a drawer with all her other bloody relics . . . including that sketch of Spangler.