It was dusk when Dunbar and Southerland arrived, a bluish dusk and somehow warmer than the afternoon. Gray found them waiting on a stone bench beneath an oak. They were dressed alike in raincoats and homburgs: Tweedledum and Tweedledee, he thought.

"I see him tomorrow," Gray said. "She's invited me to bloody dinner."

Dunbar nodded with a slow smile. "That's very good, Nicky. That's very good indeed."

While Southerland remained typically cool, asking only: "So then she did accept you? Your presence here, she accepted it?"

Gray took a deep breath and sagged to the bench beside them. "Why shouldn't she accept it? She's not involved, so she has no reason to suspect anything. "

Dunbar withdrew a leather-bound notebook, very expensive and purchased for just such an occasion. The fountain pen was also clearly dear, a Mont Blanc with a gold nib. "I suppose you might as well tell us about it," he said. "In as much detail as possible."

Details: a frantic sparrow in the thickets, a ground fog in the hollows, the echo of horse hooves, and this absurd meeting on a cold bench.

"She likes the city," Gray said. "She seems to like Spangler ..."

"Does she have any idea where he gets the money?"

Gray shook his head. "It's not exactly the sort of question she would ask."

"What about their schedule? How often does he see her?"

"I don't know. Maybe three or four times a week."

"And his health?"

"She's the one who's been ill."

“It's the small points that interest us now,” Southerland said. "For example, how would you assess her emotional state?"

Gray shrugged, exhaling smoke from a cigarette—one of the awful local brands. "I've seen her better."

"And what do you suppose the problem is?" Southerland persisted.

"I don't know. Perhaps she's bored."

"Or frightened?" Dunbar suggested. "Frightened of Spangler, or what's happening to him?"

Southerland gently embellished. "Because naturally that would be a factor, Nicky. I mean, if she's genuinely concerned about him, then it could mean that he's in real trouble, that he's desperate enough to consider alternatives—"

"Look, you've got it wrong. She likes the man. He pays the bills. That's the whole of it."

"Ah, but what are those bills doing to him?" Dunbar grinned. "And what is he willing to do in order to pay them?"

For an awful moment it looked to him as if Southerland was going to touch him, to lay a hand on his shoulder or his knee. "We're not trying to imply that the woman is materially involved, Nicky, merely that she's a vital barometer, so to speak. Which is why you've got to pay attention to the little things, the tidbits that give us the larger picture. Now you do understand that, don't you?"