“Don’t do that,” I said.

“I didn’t intend to.” He sat up, but he didn’t make the mistake of reaching for me a second time. “What’s got into you?”

“Common sense, maybe,” I suggested. “John, you make love very nicely. I don’t know anyone who does it better—”

“And your experience, I presume, is extensive.”

“Ooooh, how rude,” I said. “That was unworthy of you, sir. As I was saying, I’m willing to play games of that sort with you whenever it suits me, but don’t insult my intelligence by implying that our relationship means any more to you than—than that. If you did care about me, you wouldn’t disappear into thin air the way you did and left me worrying—I mean—”

The hard, angry line of his lips relaxed, and I realized, too damned late as usual, that I had left myself wide open. That repulsive heroine of mine was affecting my speech patterns, if not my brain.

John stood up. “Darling!” he bleated. “I didn’t know you cared.”

I had one hand raised to smack his grinning face, before I realized that he had presented his cheek in gallant expectation of just that response. “Oops,” he said in his normal voice. “Wait a sec—not that one.” He turned the other cheek, the one that the cat had not scratched.

I let my hand fall. “Never mind,” I said, with as much dignity as the situation allowed.

“Don’t go,” John pleaded, as I made a wide berth around him on my way to the door. “It’s been a frightfully dull day, and these little exchanges are so enlivening. We could insult one another a bit longer and then retire—”

“I’ll have to take a rain check. Schmidt will be at my door at around six A.M., and if I’m not there, he’ll have the whole police force of Bad Steinbach out looking for me.” Then I remembered my cooling stove, and added, “Unless you’d like to come back with me.”

“Hmm,” said John, scratching his chin and eyeing me doubtfully.

“Oh, well, forget it. You’d probably make me do it anyway.”

“Do what?”

“Never mind.” I opened the door to the parlor. Clara burst out and made a beeline for John. “Sic ’em, killer,” I said.

Seven

SCHMIDT DID WAKE ME THE FOLLOWING morning. It had taken me some time to fall asleep. The emphatic hammering on my door shattered a dream whose details I prefer not to recall and shot me out of bed before I realized what I was doing. Having gotten that far, I decided I might as well open the door.

“Ha, there you are,” Schmidt said happily.

I stared blearily at him. He had changed into a bright orange ski suit, in which he looked like an animated pumpkin.

“We are having breakfast together in our room, Tony and I,” Schmidt went on with ghastly cheerfulness. “Come. Come quickly, we have much to discuss.”

I grabbed a robe as he towed me toward the door, and managed to get it around me before he ushered me into his—their—room. Heavenly warmth wrapped around my shivering limbs. Some noble soul had fired up the stove.