order and stand in front of her with the light shining on their faces. She’d learned a thing or two about police work in the last couple of years, she reckoned. She’d been the subject of some sneaky interrogations herself.
There was a farcical moment when, like a herd of prep-school boys, they pushed and jostled one another.
“
J
comes after
G
, you twerp!”
“Hey, miss—can you do me first? I’m going on somewhere—late already, don’t you know.”
“I simply
must
be at the Embassy by eight or there’ll be the devil to pay!”
Letty, her hair an unnaturally gleaming halo of gold in the light, surveyed her flock. She remembered her nanny’s brisk way with crowds of children at parties:
Start as you mean to carry on, dear—and take no little prisoners
. Letty stabbed her pencil at the anxious crowd and announced: “No excuses. No privileges. No exceptions. Alphabetical order by surname.
Anthony
, did you hear me?”
Anthony Wardle shuffled disconsolately to the rear.
Work began. She was sorry to see that the dismissive Louis had the surname of “Adams” and therefore presented himselflegitimately at the front of the queue. She looked for some misdemeanour as an excuse to send him to the back but, aware of her watchful eye on him, he behaved perfectly.
“Ah! The Recording Angel!” he said with an ingratiating smirk, smoothing down his own floppy blond hair. Blue eyes bleached and splintered to diamonds by the harsh light glittered disconcertingly. “Adams. Louis Fortescue Adams. At your service. I may be contacted at the British School. You know the address.”
He made to leave.
“A moment, Mr. Adams,” she said sharply. Tall and handsome, he had spoken to her with a languid condescension. This was exactly the kind of Englishman who raised Letty’s hackles, reminding her all too keenly of the treacherous Cambridge don who’d engineered her dismissal from the university. Determined not to let him off so easily: “The inspector will need to know exactly where you were positioned at the moment of Agamemnon’s death,” she invented, deliberately to detain and irritate him. “Perhaps you could give me the stage reference … you know … stage left, six feet from central point … I’m assuming a twenty-foot radius.”
“What do you mean—Agamemnon’s death? It’s a work of literature, my dear,” he explained slowly and clearly, playing to the crowd. “Like Robin Hood. Or King Arthur. You’ve heard of them? The king didn’t
really
die. At least not here, not now, not on this occasion. We would calculate the old rogue in actuality to have slipped this mortal coil towards the end of the Bronze Age—1200 B.C. or thereabouts.”
“The queue is waiting, Mr. Adams.”
“Stage right. Perimeter. End of the chorus line rubbing shoulders with Dicky Crawshawe,” Louis Adams contributed briskly, then, apparently unable to pass up the chance of tormenting her a little further: “At least I think it was Dicky. Hard to tell. Could just as easily have been Count Dracula in thatcloak.” He leaned towards her confidentially. “Have a care, miss, when you get to the
D’s.”
“Thank you. Next!”
Letty noticed that Adams did not leave in spite of his affected haste. He quietly drew aside and sat down on the front row of marble seats, watching the proceedings, his blond Anglo-Saxon head flaring like a beacon in the arc lights.
She had been kept afloat by her rush of anger with Adams and with his departure was, for a moment, almost swept away by other emotions. She found herself fixed here taking notes like a school matron at the bedtime roll call—
Hands? Teeth? Bowels? Tick. Tick. Better luck tomorrow, dear
—when what she wanted to do was express her shock, to share her grief with William Gunning. He too would be feeling devastated. He’d grown to admire Andrew Merriman—owed his present situation to him. Letty owed the professor that and much more. She looked wearily down the line of
There was a farcical moment when, like a herd of prep-school boys, they pushed and jostled one another.
“
J
comes after
G
, you twerp!”
“Hey, miss—can you do me first? I’m going on somewhere—late already, don’t you know.”
“I simply
must
be at the Embassy by eight or there’ll be the devil to pay!”
Letty, her hair an unnaturally gleaming halo of gold in the light, surveyed her flock. She remembered her nanny’s brisk way with crowds of children at parties:
Start as you mean to carry on, dear—and take no little prisoners
. Letty stabbed her pencil at the anxious crowd and announced: “No excuses. No privileges. No exceptions. Alphabetical order by surname.
Anthony
, did you hear me?”
Anthony Wardle shuffled disconsolately to the rear.
Work began. She was sorry to see that the dismissive Louis had the surname of “Adams” and therefore presented himselflegitimately at the front of the queue. She looked for some misdemeanour as an excuse to send him to the back but, aware of her watchful eye on him, he behaved perfectly.
“Ah! The Recording Angel!” he said with an ingratiating smirk, smoothing down his own floppy blond hair. Blue eyes bleached and splintered to diamonds by the harsh light glittered disconcertingly. “Adams. Louis Fortescue Adams. At your service. I may be contacted at the British School. You know the address.”
He made to leave.
“A moment, Mr. Adams,” she said sharply. Tall and handsome, he had spoken to her with a languid condescension. This was exactly the kind of Englishman who raised Letty’s hackles, reminding her all too keenly of the treacherous Cambridge don who’d engineered her dismissal from the university. Determined not to let him off so easily: “The inspector will need to know exactly where you were positioned at the moment of Agamemnon’s death,” she invented, deliberately to detain and irritate him. “Perhaps you could give me the stage reference … you know … stage left, six feet from central point … I’m assuming a twenty-foot radius.”
“What do you mean—Agamemnon’s death? It’s a work of literature, my dear,” he explained slowly and clearly, playing to the crowd. “Like Robin Hood. Or King Arthur. You’ve heard of them? The king didn’t
really
die. At least not here, not now, not on this occasion. We would calculate the old rogue in actuality to have slipped this mortal coil towards the end of the Bronze Age—1200 B.C. or thereabouts.”
“The queue is waiting, Mr. Adams.”
“Stage right. Perimeter. End of the chorus line rubbing shoulders with Dicky Crawshawe,” Louis Adams contributed briskly, then, apparently unable to pass up the chance of tormenting her a little further: “At least I think it was Dicky. Hard to tell. Could just as easily have been Count Dracula in thatcloak.” He leaned towards her confidentially. “Have a care, miss, when you get to the
D’s.”
“Thank you. Next!”
Letty noticed that Adams did not leave in spite of his affected haste. He quietly drew aside and sat down on the front row of marble seats, watching the proceedings, his blond Anglo-Saxon head flaring like a beacon in the arc lights.
She had been kept afloat by her rush of anger with Adams and with his departure was, for a moment, almost swept away by other emotions. She found herself fixed here taking notes like a school matron at the bedtime roll call—
Hands? Teeth? Bowels? Tick. Tick. Better luck tomorrow, dear
—when what she wanted to do was express her shock, to share her grief with William Gunning. He too would be feeling devastated. He’d grown to admire Andrew Merriman—owed his present situation to him. Letty owed the professor that and much more. She looked wearily down the line of
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