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and earn some more. I went over to the bureau, pulled open the underwear drawer, and dug among the contents, wondering what had inspired me to buy a pair of red bikini briefs with
Sunday
embroidered on them in black. It was the Royal Porcupine, of course; among other things, he was an underwear freak. It had been part of a Weekend Set; I had
Friday
and
Saturday
too, all bilingual. I took them out of the cellophane package and the Royal Porcupine said, “Put on
Sunday/Dimanche”;
he liked creating images of virtue violated. I did. “Dynamite,” said the Royal Porcupine. “Now turn around.” He prowled towards me and we ended up in alustful tangle on his mattress. There was a flesh-colored brassiere too, with a front closing.
For lovers only
, the ad said, so I bought it to go with my lover. I was a sucker for ads, especially those that promised happiness.
    I’d brought this incriminating underwear with me because I was afraid Arthur would discover it after my death and realize he’d never seen it before. During my life he never would have looked into that particular drawer; he shied away from underwear, he liked to think his mind was on higher things, which, to give him credit, it was, most of the time. So I used my underwear drawer as a hiding place, and from force of habit I was still doing this.
    I took out Fraser Buchanan’s black notebook. Under it, at the bottom, wrapped in a slip, was the manuscript I’d been working on at the time of my death.
    Charlotte stood in the room where he had left her, her hands still unconsciously clasping the casket of jewels. A fire was crackling in the spacious fireplace, its reflections gleaming warmly on the marble family crests that adorned the richly carved mantel, yet she felt quite cold. At the same time, her cheeks were burning. She could still see the curl of his lip, the tilt of the cynical eyebrows in that dark but compelling face, his hard mouth, thin-lipped and rapacious.… She remembered the way his eyes had moved over her, appraising the curves of her firm young body, which were only partially concealed by her cheap, badly fitting black crepe dress. She had sufficient experience with the nobility to know how they looked upon women like herself, who through no fault of their own were forced to earn their own livings. He would be no different from the rest. Her breasts moved tumultuously beneath the black crepe as she thought of the humiliations she had suffered. Liars and hypocrites, all of them! Already she had begun to hate him
.
    She would finish resetting the emeralds and leave Redmond Grange as quickly as possible. There was menace lurking somewhere in the vast house,she could almost smell it. She remembered the puzzling words of the coachman, Tom, as he handed her none too graciously out of the coach. “Don’t go near the maze, Miss, is my advice to you,” he had said. He was a sinister, ratlike man with bad teeth and a furtive manner.
    “What maze?” Charlotte had asked
.
    “You’ll find out soon enough,” he had replied with a snigger. “Many a young girl afore you has come to grief in the maze.” But he had refused to explain further
.
    From outside the French windows came a trail of silvery laughter, a woman’s voice.… At this hour, and in November, who could be walking on the terrace? Charlotte shivered, remembering those other footsteps she had heard in the same place the night before; but when she had looked down onto the terrace from her bedroom window, she could see nothing but moonlight and the shadows of the shrubberies moving in the wind
.
    She went towards the door, intending to mount the stairs to her own small room, which was on the same floor as the maids’ quarters. That was how highly Redmond valued her, she thought with scorn. She might as well have been a governess, one step above a parlor maid or a cook but definitely not a lady. Yet she was as well-bred as he was, if the truth were known
.
    Outside the drawing-room door