‘‘Well, go to the wine cellar with Sloan and find something special, would you?’’
‘‘Of course, darling.’’ An expression of mild puzzlement passed over Pamela’s face, not rising quite to the level of a wrinkle across her lovely brow.
‘‘We want something beyond the ordinary for Basil, don’t you think? Something that sings. A finale! A last act! After all, he is an artiste.’’
‘‘Uh, yes, darling. It’s just that you usually make the decisions about wine.’’
‘‘Yes, but Basil is your friend.’’
‘‘Of course.’’
‘‘Help Mrs. Falkland, please, Sloan,’’ Falkland said.
Pamela went out the door, and Sloan, after nodding to Falkland, followed her.
It was just a bit awkward with Pamela gone, Basil found. He rose, strolled about, stopping at the French windows facing the back, admiring the lake view, the private dock, and the yacht anchored there, sleek, long, and bright white even in the dying daylight. He tried a few questions about Falkland’s line of work, but when the man answered at length, he realized that he didn’t know what e-arbitrage was and couldn’t intelligently carry on that line of conversation. Pamela was taking entirely too long with the dessert wine. She should have stayed here to protect him. After all, this damned dinner had been her idea. He wondered whether maybe she was a risk taker and liked to skate close to discovery. He’d had hints of that when he saw her drive out of the playhouse parking lot at highway speed. Perhaps tonight she was teasing her husband. Well, Basil would have to be doubly careful, if so.
Then Falkland quoted, ‘‘ ‘And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst; but, Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom, Kate of Kate-Hall, my super-dainty Kate.’ ’’
‘‘You know the play.’’
‘‘Oh, yes. I was quite a theater scholar once upon a time. In fact, I met Pamela through the theater.’’
‘‘Oh?’’
‘‘I was a backer for one of her shows. She, of course, was the star.’’
‘‘But she doesn’t act outside of rep anymore.’’
‘‘Oh, I need her all to myself. ‘Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee-’ ’’
‘‘Shakespeare has Kate present some good arguments against that point of view.’’
‘‘Ah, but ‘such duty as the subject owes the prince, even such a woman oweth to her husband.’ ’’
Basil did not respond. How had he gotten drawn into this discussion anyhow? And where the hell was Pamela?
Sloan appeared in the arch between the great hall and the dining room. Basil was startled for a second to see him, and he realized how very soundproof the back regions were. One heard no sounds of cooking, or plates rattling, or glasses clinking.
‘‘Dinner is ready, sir, whenever you are.’’
Basil had not studied Sloan before, since Basil had been fully occupied with other problems. But now he realized that the man was extremely sleek. His suit was as well made as Falkland’s, or nearly so. His cheeks were pinkly smooth-shaven. His hair, thin on top and combed down flat with no attempt to cover the bald center, was rich brown and shiny. Therefore it was a bit of a surprise that, apparently unknown to Sloan, a small tuft, no bigger than the wing of a wren, was disarranged in back. Perhaps he had brushed against something while cooking, if indeed he was the person in the ménage who cooked.
Falkland murmured, ‘‘What say you to a piece of roast and mustard?’’
Basil winced. He was getting bloody damned tired of Shakespeare. ‘‘We should wait for Pamela, shouldn’t we?’’
‘‘We’ll just start on the appetizer, I think,’’ Falkland said.
Basil sat across from Falkland, himself to the right and Falkland to the left of the head of the long table, a wide pond of shiny walnut between them. Candles were the only lights. The head of the table apparently had been left for Pamela, which made some sense, since it put her between them and she was the only woman present. Or absent, as was the case currently. Basil regarded the silver at his place setting with dismay. Why five forks? There were also three spoons, but he was sure he could figure those out. One was likely for coffee. Or dessert? There was a rounded soupspoon. A fellow director had once told him on a shoot, where they were doing a two-shot of the happy couple at dinner, that a small round soupspoon was for thick soup and a large oval soupspoon was for clear soup. But five forks, only one perhaps identifiable as a salad fork? Now that he thought about it, the setup was probably designed to intimidate him. Well, he wasn’t going to let that happen.
He said, ‘‘Where is Pamela? We’ll be done with the first course before she arrives if we’re not careful.’’
‘‘She might be-quite a while. Pamela has always had a difficult time making up her mind.’’
Basil had no idea what to say to that. He sat unhappily in his chair, wondering why Falkland kept the dining room so dark. It would make a wonderful set for-oh, hell. The kind of atmosphere Falkland had prepared would only be good for a show with a supernatural element. Or a murder. Gaslight, Macbeth, Deathtrap.
But, of course, it was just the natural dining behavior of the very rich. For the thousandth upon thousandth time Basil reflected that he should have been born rich. Candles at dinner were probably a nightly ritual at the Falklands’. He’d used them in his production of An Inspector Calls. And of course Macbeth. Thank God he hadn’t uttered the name of the Scottish play aloud. Very bad luck.
With the darkness crowding his shoulders, and the flicker of the candle flames causing the shadows of his five forks to undulate as if slinking slowly toward the plate, Basil resolved to look upon the whole evening as a set of suggestions for his next noir production. Use it, don’t fight it, he told himself.
Sloan entered. He carried two plates of something that surely must not be what it looked like. Surely it was just the low candlelight that made the lumps appear reddish and bloody and undercooked.
As the plate touched down in front of Basil with scarcely a sound, he saw it was indeed raw meat.
‘‘Steak tartare,’’ Falkland said. ‘‘A small portion makes a perfect appetizer. As a main dish it becomes a bit much, don’t you think?’’
‘‘Uh, is he serving just us two? What about Pamela?’’
‘‘Oh, Pamela won’t be long. As I was about to say, as an appetizer I have Sloan serve it without the raw egg. Although if you can buy fresh new eggs from green-run chickens, there is really no danger. And of course with these new methods of preventing salmonella in chickens-something about the properly inoculated feed-you can be quite confident. Nevertheless, for the sake of my guests’ equanimity, I forgo the egg and serve the steak tartare as an appetizer.
‘‘Traditionally, of course, it is chopped fillet steak or sirloin, twice run through the grinder. Then mixed with chopped onions and garlic and capers and raw egg. Salt and pepper. And the patty is shaped with a depression in the center. Into that depression is dropped a perfect golden yolk. It is a beautiful presentation, really, the yolk a deep cadmium yellow, and the meat around it rich red. Well, like this, actually. So fresh it glistens. Do you see?’’
‘‘Uhhh, yes.’’
‘‘Of course,’’ Charles said, steepling his fingers as the manservant stepped back, ‘‘it can only be the very, very freshest meat.’’
‘‘Uh, yes indeed.’’
‘‘And never, never ground beef from the supermarket.’’ He uttered the word ‘‘supermarket’’ the way another person might say ‘‘latrine.’’ The man, Basil thought, should have been an actor himself. He certainly got all the juice out of a word.
‘‘You’re not eating. Now, these are the traditional accompaniments around it-capers, chopped onion, and minced parsley.’’