According to Their Deeds Read Online Free PDF

the world is our oyster. Let’s find a pearl.”
    “Wherever you lead, Charles, I will follow.”
    He led from beside her, a knight errant with his fair maiden, zigzagging through busy lamp-lit sidewalks, beneath a salmon sky and still air the temperature of vichyssoise. At the door of a miniature black villa fit between townhouses, a large-nosed man bowed his jet-black hair to them.
    “Madame Beale! Monsieur. So welcome!”
    “Good evening, Henri,” Charles said.
    “The chef has La croustade de veau braisé au Madère tonight, very special.”
    They were whisked to a corner table framed by vines decanted from a ceramic row of cabbages, beets and onions above them. The table was polished ebony, and the chairs were plush and pink. They sat in them side by side, and their candle was lit.
    “Ah, Dorothy!” A woman in a black evening dress and henna red curls flew across the room. “What a night! Did Henri tell you? The veau braisé au Madère is magnificent! I cried over it. It was so delicious.”
    “Of course he told us, Antoinette.”
    “Philippe! Come! Have a wonderful meal,” Antoinette said, already racing toward another table.
    “The veal pastry, of course,” Charles told the waiter. And then they were alone.
    “Oh! I was going to ask Angelo about something from the auction.”
    “You said he didn’t go in.”
    “Something outside. I’ll ask tomorrow.”
    “Do you like La croustade de veau braisé ?”
    “We’ll soon find out.”
    In their corner, they were outside the mumble and buzz of the other diners and gymnastics of the waiters. Dorothy laid her hand on the table, free for the taking; and Charles took it, and held it. The candle flame danced.
    “I want to meet Karen Liu,” Charles said.
    “What?” Dorothy straightened, and looked at him. “The congresswoman? Why?”
    “I want to see what kind of person she is.”
    Dorothy adjusted to the subject, smiling and frowning, both. “You’re worried about the checks.”
    “In many ways.”
    “Madame.” The veal had arrived. They ate.
    “Well, it is the best La croustade de veau braisé au Madère I’ve ever had,” Charles said.
    “The only one you’ve ever had?”
    “If there had been another, I would have remembered.”
    “I’d have to say the same,” she said. And then, “Tell me more about Derek Bastien.”
    “Yes. Let me see. Derek was a collector.”
    “There must be more to him than what he owned.”
    “I don’t mean just that. But he certainly owned a lot. He lived in a grand house and everything in it was special.”
    “It was in Northwest, wasn’t it?”
    “Yes, in Foxhall. The floor was Italian marble. The wallpaper was a replica of Thomas Jefferson’s. Everything was like that. His desk was originally Alphonso Taft’s.”
    “Taft?” Dorothy smiled. “Is that a relation of President Taft?”
    “His father. Alphonso was Attorney General in the 1870s. Derek didn’t buy things; he acquired them.”
    “That’s the desk you were talking about.”
    “Yes. It was typical. If he bought a toothbrush, it would probably have been ivory and once belonged to a Duke—or to the man who invented toothpaste.”
    Dorothy poked her veal pastry. “He must have been independently wealthy.”
    “He was, actually,” Charles said.
    “How nice for him,” she said. “Did he have to work, then?”
    “No. It was more of a hobby.”
    “Did you say something about the Attorney General?”
    “Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and Derek was not that person. That person is named John Borchard, and Derek was that person’s chief of staff.”
    “So this Mr. Borchard person must work for the Assistant Attorney General.”
    Charles shook his head. “No. The Deputy Assistant Attorney General reports to the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, who reports to the Assistant Attorney General, who reports to the Attorney General.”
    “Charles, that’s ridiculous.”
    “They have that whole big building to fill. This