There Fell a Shadow by Andrew Klavan Page A

was getting ready to head off to work, I guess. It was 9:30 in the morning. I had phoned an hour earlier to ask if I might drop by.
    We sat down in the wing chairs. He called for coffee. We drank it. We talked. Wexler asked after my health. I told him it would do. I told him about the assassin, about how Colt had died. He listened silently, gazing out the window. His face sagged; he looked weary, depressed. His damp eyes seemed to be looking at something very far away.
    And that’s when he turned and asked me: “Why did you want to see me, Wells?”
    â€œI want to know more about Timothy Colt.”
    â€œOh? I wouldn’t think they’d let you cover this one.”
    â€œI’m not. Not the investigation. Lansing’s on that.”
    â€œI see. You’re doing the side angles?”
    â€œI guess. I don’t know. A man gets killed in front of you, it kind of makes you curious, that’s all.”
    He gave me a wintry smile. He considered it for a long moment. “The funeral is tomorrow, you know,” he said softly. “Up in Valhalla. Will you be there?”
    â€œI’m not sure. It’s kind of strange to first meet a man on the night he dies.”
    â€œYes,” Wexler said. “Yes, I suppose it is. It’s too bad, really. He would have liked you, too. You’re his sort. Oh, go ahead, there’s an ashtray somewhere.”
    I had taken out a cigarette. He rose and went to an antique rolltop desk against the wall behind him. He took a tiny china ashtray from one of its compartments. Set it next to the silver coffeepot on the small round table that stood between us. I practically filled it with the first tip of ash. Wexler took his chair again.
    â€œWho was Eleanora?” I asked him. I watched his face carefully when I said it. The name registered there. The pouches of flesh above his cheeks gathered as his eyes narrowed. His thin lips tightened till they nearly disappeared. He didn’t try to hide his reaction. He looked down at the table, still smiling that cold, sad smile.
    â€œHe must have been very drunk,” he said.
    I nodded. “He was. We both were.”
    â€œHe never mentioned her unless he was. Not to me, anyway. But then, he and I, you know, we met by sheer accident. We became close … well, merely due to our circumstances. You, as I say, were more his type. Still, he was fascinating.”
    â€œWas he?”
    â€œYes. At least, I thought so. He was … big. Bigger than life, I guess you’d say. He had a way of making you feel your own life was insufficient. Drab. Everything about him seemed a little more—exciting than the rest of us. He had a quality of—vitality? Some kind of yearning in him. I don’t know. Something, though. Something most of us forget eventually, or learn to do without.”
    I knew what he meant. I thought of Colt on the edge of the Oklahoma plains, watching that freight train roll and roll into the endless grass. “All right,” I said. “Then why? Why was he like that? What did he have that the rest of us don’t?”
    Wexler studied me. He seemed to come to a decision. He laughed once and said, “Eleanora, for one thing.”
    I nodded slowly. “So who was she, Wexler? I came to you because he told me he was with you the day the capital of Sentu fell. He said you went back to cover the story, and he went back for her. Who was she?”
    As he answered me, his attention drifted. Into his memories of Africa and revolution. They couldn’t be far from the surface of his mind just now.
    â€œEleanora?” he said. “She was a missionary. English, I think. An Anglican missionary.” He shook his head. “No, I don’t suppose that’s entirely fair. She was something of a legend even then. Even before Colt made a legend of her in his mind. We heard about her now and then, the reporters. We spent most of our time, of course, in the Hotel