"Didn't Captain McKinnon mean for me to stick with you?" He watched her clumsiness with the return mechanism. "I'm a right good typist. Why don't you let me do that?"

Without waiting for permission, he swung the typewriter around to his side of the desk, seated himself in the nearest chair and rollered the forms into the machine with a businesslike air.

Bemused, Sigrid leaned back in her own chair and gave him her name, rank, and all the other required data. Observing the tilt of his fair head, she realized again how handsome the Navy officer was and, almost against her will, found herself comparing him with Oscar Nauman.

Half as old and probably half as bright, she thought loyally, subconsciously defending Nauman against nebulous threats, completely unaware that loyalty was in question.

In a clear crisp voice, she dictated her account of the previous night's shooting, signed the forms in triplicate, and dropped them in her Out basket. At least Knight hadn't asked a lot of dumb questions about the shooting incident. Did that indicate tact or apathy?

"I'll have a car sent around," she told him crisply. "You do drive, don't you?"

"Sure, but that won't be necessary," he said. "I've got a driver waiting."

The baby-faced young sailor who hopped out from behind the wheel of the black Chrysler and held the rear door for them looked barely old enough to steer a homemade go-cart, much less hold a legal driver's license. He saluted smartly and sir'd and ma'am'd them when told where to go, but it was immediately apparent by the way he inched out into it that New York's free-wheeling traffic intimidated him dreadfully. He tried to hug the curb, ran afoul of a compulsory right-turn lane before he'd gone two blocks, and was freshly surprised each time his lane was blocked by double-parkers. Instead of swerving to the left as everyone else did, he would put on his blinker and wait hopefully for someone courteous enough to let him in. Since double-parkers were as plentiful as courteous drivers were rare, it began to look like a long trip up to the Maintenon.

"Try not to watch," Lieutenant Knight advised Sigrid in a low voice as the timid yeoman flinched from one speeding cab perilously into the path of another. "My regular driver's on liberty this weekend. Sorry."

"Quite all right," Sigrid said through gritted teeth and tried to find humor in the irony that made a slow and supercautious driver infinitely more terrifying than Nauman's breakneck recklessness.

"What can you tell me about Commander Dixon's background?" she asked.

"Born in Florida, daughter of a deceased Navy chief, graduated from college there," he answered promptly. "OCS at Newport, tours of duty in Japan, San Diego, Norfolk, and D.C. Stationed here in New York a little over two years."

"No, I meant her work. You said she holds a high security clearance. What's her field?"

This time the answer came less promptly. "Communications."

"Communications?"

"Messages from various commands back and forth," he said vaguely. "That sort of thing."

"In code perhaps?" she probed.

"Cryptography, yes," he admitted.

Sigrid waited in silence. She had found that as a rule most people felt compelled to fill an expectant silence and certainly became ill-at-ease if it stretched out too long. Lieutenant Knight merely smiled and returned her cool-eyed gaze with bland serenity until a raucous car horn behind cursed their young driver for drawing to a stop while the traffic light ahead was still yellow.

"You wouldn't care to elaborate on exactly what Commander Dixon does?" Sigrid asked, nettled.

"I don't think so. After all, it isn't important, is it? She was injured last night by sheer coincidence."

"So far as you know," she gibed.

He nodded agreeably. "So far as we know."

"Escorted there, I'm told, by a Russian."

"A superannuated, lower-echelon member of a trade delegation, Lieutenant. The Walker case notwithstanding, we do keep an eye on these things," he said lightly. "Which is why I'm along today."

Unnerved by all the horns that urged him not to block the lane before a light was actually red, the yeoman misjudged a yellow and edged into the intersection on the bumper of the car ahead. The light changed to red; the car in front did not move; crosstown traffic entered the fray and soon the intersection was so jammed that it took two more greens for traffic to sort itself out. By the time they drew up to the entrance of the Maintenon, the sailor's baby face was drenched in perspiration and he was somewhat wobbly on his legs as he opened the door for them.

"That'll be all for the day," Lieutenant Knight told him kindly.

"Oh thank you, sir!" he said with such fervent gratitude that Sigrid thought he was going to shake the lieutenant's hand.

9

INSIDE the Maintenon's spacious lobby, all was discreet serenity. Guests came and went beneath the enormous crystal chandelier, apparently unaffected by the violent tragedy which had struck the previous night on the next floor. It was a tribute to the professionalism of Lucienne Ronay's staff. Fire trucks, ambulances, and a dozen or more police cars had responded to the alarms and after the dead and wounded had been removed and the emergency personnel departed, her housecleaning crew had swooped down upon the scene and labored through the remainder of the night to tidy away all traces of the disaster.

They were not allowed to touch anything in the d'Aubigné Room itself, of course. Cooperating with the police, Madam Ronay had personally ordered the blue velvet rope that now looped through brass stanchions and blocked the hall that led to the devasted ballroom. A few feet beyond, folding wooden panels decorated with frothy pastoral scenes screened the entrance to the room from casual view.

Molly Baldwin was passing near the main desk as Sigrid inquired directions and she introduced herself and escorted them upstairs. Madam Ronay's young assistant looked her full twenty-three years this afternoon. Her face was pale and drawn and there were dark circles under her eyes.

"Guess you didn't get much sleep last night," Lieutenant Knight said.

"Only four or five hours," admitted Miss Baldwin, leading them past the velvet ropes, past the ornate screens, and down the wide hall to the d'Aubigné Room. "It was hectic but I suppose it could have been much worse."

Indeed, the actual damage to the elegant ballroom was minor, considering the carnage the small bomb had wreaked. Except for the rear quarter of the room, in that corner surrounding Table 5, the room showed only the usual morning-after ravages: the empty glasses, dirty ashtrays, lipstick-smeared napkins and other detritus that a large crowd always leaves behind.

There were signs of panic and confusion, however, in overturned chairs and in the playing cards scattered over the deep plush carpet.

Table 5 itself was charred and splintered and Sigrid gazed in silence at the dark splotches where torn bodies had lain bleeding-Zachary Wolferman and John Sutton on the end nearest the corner walls, she had been told; Tillie and Commander Dixon next to the dead men. The long linen cloth that had covered their table was bundled into a scorched and sodden heap upon the floor.

"We were lucky about fire," Miss Baldwin told them softly. "One of our busboys put it out with a hand extinguisher, so there was no water damage."

"Where were you when the bomb exploded?" asked Sigrid as she began to orient herself in relation to the events of the previous evening.

"Over by the far table where the refreshments were."

"Were you looking in this direction at that moment?"