“Where?” she demanded. “Where are you? You left me no number, no forwarding address. What am I to do when people ask how to reach you?”

“Has anyone tried to reach me?” I asked, with a sudden uneasy recollection of the corpse in the garden.

“Nein. Not yet. But it is not professional, what you do—”

She went on scolding, and I went on thinking about Freddy. I am a great believer in not troubling trouble until it comes troubling you, and I certainly didn’t owe Freddy anything—I had a strong suspicion he was the one who had tried to send me and Schmidt shuffling off this mortal coil—but I hated to think of him lying there cold and unwanted. It was the cold that had kept him from being discovered. If the temperature rose…

I didn’t want to think about that. I said, “Gerda, will you look something up for me?”

Gerda loves being useful. She has her own little reference shelf, right beside her desk, and it only took a few minutes for her to find the information I needed, in the National Faculty Directory.

I thanked her and hung up before she could repeat her demand for an address and phone number.

So simple, and so damning. Professor James Belfort of the Mathematics Department at Granstock and his wife Louise had no children. Tony had lied to me from the beginning. Not only was Ann no knitter, she wasn’t even a person.

Eight

I WAS ON THE BED, FLAT ON MY BACK WITH the cat on my stomach, when Tony walked in. The early winter dusk had descended, and I hadn’t bothered to turn on a light. He fell over a chair, swore, fell over a table, swore, and finally found the light switch. I deduced that he had not expected to find me in residence, because he jumped nervously and let out a yelp when he saw me.

“What the hell…Are you all right? Is something the matter, Vicky? Are you sick?” He clumped to the bed leaving damp footprints across the floor, and put an icy hand on my forehead.

“I’m fine,” I said. His fingers felt like those of a corpse. “Just thinking.”

“You and Sherlock Holmes.” Tony sat down on the edge of the bed. He was in a high good humor, so I deduced he had not sprained or broken anything that day. “I don’t buy this sedentary ratiocination technique, Vicky; you’ll never learn anything if you lie around here.”

“You’re leaking all over the bed,” I said irritably. “Get up.”

“It’s just melted snow.”

“I know it’s melted snow, that’s what I’m objecting to. Get up.”

Tony rose to his full height.

“What time is it?” I asked, yawning.

“A little after five. Dieter and Elise are joining us as soon as they change. Listen, Vicky, I found out something—”

“I suggest you emulate them,” I said, looking critically at the puddle forming around his feet.

“I will in a minute. I want to tell you what I found out—”