I decided that it was time to go. I could not see how anything more could occur that evening which would help Señor Canetto in any way. I caught Susan’s eye and made a sign to her. She came toward me.

“Do we have your address, your home address?” she asked. I reached into my pocket and handed her a card. She looked at it and read out my name: Richard Garay. She handed it to one of the men carrying trays of drinks and told him to leave it on the table outside her office. We both stood at the door and surveyed the room. I felt brave and sure of myself.

“Where did you get all of these people?” I asked.

“Actually, we rented some of them.” It was like a line from a movie, something learned and rehearsed. She arched her eyebrows and looked around the room once more.

“Did you rent me?” I asked.

“My husband looked after the details. Do you want me to find out?” The look she gave me was one of studied arrogance, and then amusement.

“Not now, perhaps after I’ve gone, if you remember.”

AS I STEPPED out into the night, floodlights suddenly lit up the whole front of the house. A figure came toward me out of the shadows; he was the uniformed guard who had parked the cars. I asked him to telephone for a taxi. He motioned me to wait. I wondered as I stood there how many other pairs of eyes were watching me now, what would happen if I made a dart toward the front gate, or if I tried to go around to the back of the house. He returned to say that the taxi would take twenty minutes and told me that I could wait in the hall. Just then, the floodlights went out and the excitement of standing there so exposed, bathed in brightness, faded too.

THE STREET BELL rang at ten o’clock in the morning. I assumed it was the postman, and pressed the entry bell without thinking. A few minutes later my own doorbell rang. I was only half-dressed, and, once more, I went to answer without thinking. The man who had parked the cars and phoned the taxi the previous night was standing there.

“I was asked to hand this to you personally, sir,” he said. He gave me the envelope and then turned to go back down the stairs.

“I’m sorry you had to come up all this way,” I said.

“It’s no problem, sir.”

The letter was signed “Susan Ford” and was written on a blank sheet of paper with just a phone number at the top. The handwriting was perfectly rounded as though done by a machine. “Donald and I enjoyed meeting you last evening and were sorry you left so early,” it read. “Would you like to have supper with us? Call me and we’ll sort out the details.”