“It will be freshly plucked,” she answered him, her eyes very bright, high color on her face.
“No innuendoes!” Berry had cried. “You two need a moor and a moon. Remember this is a court of law.”
“I am not likely to forget it,” she said. “But, dangerous as it is to me, the moor and the moon would be more so,” and she tilted her chin at Belknap.
This had been a temporary fade-out of Berry’s interest in the carnation. But he had returned to it often, as he had to other apparently illogical and tiresomely remote incidents. It had the effect, however, of whetting Belknap’s appetite for enlightenment: had Berry a theory, or no theory; was he throwing dust to cover what he considered the crux of the whole business, or was he merely floundering in a waste of motives, unable to take the bull by the horns? Certainly it was time the two of them went into a huddle and exchanged views, even if the views were limited.
So it was with great expectations that Belknap answered Berry’s proposal.
“Yes, let’s go into retreat. I have a little to say myself.”
“Mr. Belknap! God rest you merry gentleman!” Belknap had approached Nadia where she stood alone, in an alcove of the great East Room. She had been trying to concentrate on a specimen of modern French art. The fog pressed a whited face against the windows near her.
“Your mood is a difficult one, Nadia. I want to talk to you.”
Belknap threw out his hands in a helpless gesture.
“You’re not kind,” he said. “Shall we go outside?”
“No, _thank_ you. Remember your Mr. Dorn.” Her dim smile, secretive, came and went.
“Come now, what would you have had me do? Tell them about the code—or have you conveniently forgotten the message? By the way, did I give it back to you? I haven’t been able to find it.”
“Perhaps. I can’t remember. Mrs. Crawford rather upset our tête-à-tête.”
Nadia looked him critically, menacingly, up and down from chin to brow and brow to chin. Her nostrils quivered; her cheeks sucked in; her eyes narrowed to shining cracks.
“There are moments when I suspect you of double dealing, Detective. You may be out to get me after all, and are finding the back-handed method the cleverest. (_Damn_ the O’Neill reiteration of that fog horn!)”
In a flash he saw the single frayed thread by which she held her nerve.