"What things?"
"Robert, please — I beg you—"
"You must tell me."
She hesitated. "He said… he told me to go to a post office box — he sent the key with the letter. He said I'd find an envelope inside. It was addressed to Paul Hamilton, here — in Paris — and I was to take it there and give it to him in return for… another envelope, one that would be addressed to Stewart Cadogan — I was supposed to destroy it — and something else, some sort of slip… There was a second envelope, you see. Hamilton was to mail it but give me a receipt — a registration form, something from the post office — to prove that he had."
"But not the envelope itself?"
"No… not if I could help it. It was dangerous. If there was no choice, my father said, I should take it, but then mail it immediately."
"And in return for this…?"
She stepped back. She was wearing a heavy, cable-knit sweater under the cape; reaching beneath it, she pulled out an oversized envelope, fairly thick. I took it from her and squeezed it, feeling a wad of papers inside. I didn't open it. I didn't need to. I was certain now that my speculations had been close to the mark. This envelope contained the material that Brightman had held over Hamilton, which ultimately would have been redeemed by the letter to Cadogan — which Subotin had taken from Alain. Now, this ring-around-the-rosy scarcely made any dhTerence… but something else did.
"The second envelope," I said, "the one you were supposed to get the slip for… what did your father tell you about it? If all you had was the slip, how would you know Hamilton had mailed it at all?"
She looked at me. Doubt passed through her eyes. To lie or not to lie — now, without doubt, she was trying to decide. But then she made up her mind. "He gave me the address, the address that had to be on the receipt."
"And it was an address in the Soviet Union?"
"My God, yes. How did you know?"
"Please — let me see it."
She took a piece of paper from the pocket of her skirt and handed it to me. The address was printed in firm block letters: Yuri Shastov, Povonets, Karelia, U.S.S.R.
"Do you know who this person is?"
"No. I've never heard of him. In my father's letter, that's all there was. Just the name and that address."
"What was in the envelope?"
"I have no idea — I swear it."
I believed her; I almost believed all of it now. And I realized something else too: Subotin must know all about this. Because Alain had lied; he'd told me he'd mailed the letter, but not that he'd obtained a receipt — and why else would he do that unless he wanted to cover up the fact that Subotin had taken it from him? Not that I blamed him; giving up that receipt had undoubtedly saved his life. And it might even have another good result: if Subotin already had the Russian address, he'd have no use for Hamilton, and that meant we were now safe. But could I be sure? If Subotin hadn't come here, where had Hamilton gone? There were so many questions, I thought, so many doubts… Even the precise nature of Brightman's demise was problematic again. I'd been assuming he'd been murdered, but if Harry had actually sent May a letter from Detroit, then it implied that he'd killed himself, after all. He just hadn't trusted Hamilton to follow his instructions, and had used May, in effect, as a posthumous bully. This seemed out of character, since it exposed her to danger, but then he'd told her not to handle the envelope itself; and presumably, in other ways, he'd weighed the risks and decided that her safety required the absolute certainty that Hamilton did as he'd promised.
I looked back at May. "You spoke to Hamilton?"
"Yes."
"But not from Toronto?" No… In the letter, my father told me how I should reach him. I wasn't to phone, they had a special way… I flew to
Paris, but then I went straight to my place — I still have it, outside Sancerre — and then I came back. I spoke to him yesterday—"
"When?"
"In the morning first, then later — late last night. That's when he agreed… and he told me how to get here."
I thought it through and it worked out. She hadn't phoned Hamilton from Toronto, I was certain of that; my call from Nick Bern's had taken him completely by surprise. But yesterday, when I'd seen him on the barge, he'd already spoken to her: which was why he'd had so many questions for me — and why, above all, he wanted reassurance that Brightman really was dead. I'd given him that; maybe, in the end, that's why he'd agreed to see her. Then he'd called Alain, and later-while I was dozing away in my car — he and May had worked out the details. Yes, I thought, all of this fitted together, and once you accepted it, you could—must—accept everything else. All my suspicions about May came to nothing… and the only reason left for suspicions was the very strength or my desire to give them up.
Because, indeed, I so much wanted to believe her. I watched her now as she stepped across the salon, peeled off her kerchief, and shook out her hair; a few strands stuck to her damp cheeks and she pushed them away. How extraordinary she looked. Peasant… hippie lady… but in that cape and her thick wool skirt — and wearing olive-drab gum boots — she also looked like a perfect aristocrat, a country lady who'd just returned from a fine muddy tramp across her estate. And how alive she was. Her father was dead, she ought to be grieving, and yet she was radiant. More suspicions? But then I wondered if her new vitality wasn't a clue. Did she already know the truth about Harry? Was she feeling relief that his long struggle was over? Had that struggle been hers as well?
She may have sensed these questions forming in my mind, for now she broke in: "You think he's dead, don't you?"
"I'm not sure. He could be."
"Robert — if he is — you should go. I'll be all right. If he doesn't come back in an hour, I'll leave."
"That's crazy. You should go. There's no reason for you to stay. The first letter — the one to Cadogan — will never be mailed, and the second one, to Russia, already has."
An anxious look crossed her face. "You can't be sure — you don't know."
"Don't worry, I'm sure. I can't explain how, but I am."
She took this in and considered; for the first time, perhaps, she was now wondering if she could believe me. But then decision, and relief, settled into her face. "All right, then, we should go together. If he's dead… if there's no reason to stay…" She came toward me; she stood so close to me that I could feel the warmth of her breath, taste its fresh, flowery scent on my lips, and then she leaned forward further and kissed me, a soft press of her lips on my cheek. My response to this — the desire I felt — was a shock: as pure and unexpected a sensation as the astonishment I'd felt on first seeing her. Was that her purpose? Was she trying to tempt me? Something had happened that had wiped the slate clean… whatever had kept us apart in the past was now gone — it was, in truth, as if I'd never met her before, and therefore I could be attracted to her all over again. And if that had only been true, there was no doubt that I would have gone with her. But it wasn't. Gently, I kissed her. "I have to stay," I said. "He may have hidden something, something that might connect him and your father."
She stepped back. "I don't want you to. I don't want you to do anything more."
"I have to."
"No—I beg you. You'll hurt yourself. You'll hurt me."
"May, you're not afraid for me," I said, "or for yourself, you're still protecting him. But Harry's dead — he can't be hurt anymore. And what I find out from now on doesn't make any difference — I know all his secrets."