Mooring looked at me, expressionless and appraising. A cough came from the doorway. The barman served my drink, then Mooring’s, from a silver tray. Mine was tangy with lemon and Tabasco. Mooring sipped his sherry, passing it beneath his nostrils. “There’s not much to tell,” he said softly. “Lydia and I had an affair. I might be with her now.”

“When did that start?”

He ran his index finger down the side of the glass. “Three years ago, whatever Joanne thinks. The details are none of your business. You need to understand only two things. The first is that Lydia wasn’t raped.” He looked away. “What the police found was mine.”

I lit a cigarette, still watching him. “And the second?”

“That when I left, Lydia was still alive.”

Laughter came from the hallway, clubmen walking to lunch in pairs. “He’s not worth the money,” someone was saying. “You could fit the entire Republican party down here into one room and wipe ’em out quicker than the St. Valentine’s Day massacre.” To Mooring, I said, “What happened that night?”

“I was only there an hour. She was high-strung, but laughing. We celebrated.”

“Celebrated what?”

He gave me a quick sideways glance. “Being together. It was hard to arrange.”

“Is that what made her high-strung, or was it Jason and the will?”

“No,” he said flatly. “She didn’t mention that.”

“Wouldn’t she?”

His eyelids dropped. Scowling, he said, “I’m not sure. Did you draft that?”

“Cade did. And he knows only what Lydia told him: not much.”

He took a pensive sip. “I can’t help with Jason. That night we didn’t talk about him. We made love and said foolish things. Personal things, that’s all. We made plans. When I left, she was smiling in the window.”

“Or dead on the floor.”

He flushed. “I had no reason, Shaw. Lydia was a rare woman—refined, yet real. There are no women like that, now.”

The words had the tinny ring of cheap sentiment. I wondered if Lydia were another fine thing he’d wanted, a mirror in which to see himself, the new aristocrat. “Life is unfair,” I said with a shrug.

His face hardened. Between his teeth he said, “It wasn’t meant like that. She was kind; it wasn’t practiced, it just was. There are things I can’t explain to anyone. With Lydia I never had to.”

“Where did your wife fit in?”

“Badly.” He put down his drink. “Most people have two lives, perhaps three. You start as one person, and then—you can’t expect a man and woman to keep fulfilling each other, not without children, something to build on.” His gaze grew pointed. “Perhaps you understand that.”