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“Of course,
res arcana.
” She turned to Art. “As always, the matter is confidential. We’ll have to read about it ourselves in the obits.”
    Gloria crossed the room and stood beside Gertie. She never got any flack from Gertie, who’d been knitting the same purple scarf for the three years Art had been at Camelot.
    Phyllis leaned into the bridge table and cupped her hand to her mouth. “Did you see that pair of legs dangling off the stretcher? It must be poor Judge Nesbitt in that bag. He was one long drink of water, and I know he had the runs. And a headache.”
    Betty shivered. When she clasped her hands together they looked like a pair of sparrows trembling on the table. In a deliberate motion, as if directing Phyllis to do the same, she set her jaw, turned intently toward Gloria, and awaited the announcement.
    “As I was trying to tell to you,” Gloria continued, “I need you to return to your suites. The health department informs me that we are now in a contact-isolation situation.”
    “Not again,” said a tiny woman dwarfed by the cabbage roses of the loveseat.
    “Is it influenza or gastroenteritis?” Art asked. Zol made sure he knew the difference between one type of flu and another.
    Gloria hesitated as if wondering how much information was appropriate to divulge. “Gastroenteritis.”
    “I hope it’s just in the Mountain Wing,” said someone.
    “How many cases so far?” Phyllis asked.
    Gloria glared at her.
    “I know,” Phyllis replied. “You’re
not at liberty to say.
”
    “We have a right to know. How many people are sick?” Earl called above the hubbub.
    “My dears, my dears.” Gloria’s nursery voice was gone, and with it all pretence of a smile. “Please. Calm yourselves. The situation, we have it under control.”
    “We’d better do as she asks,” said Betty.
    Earl put up his hand. “What about our supper?”
    The same thought had occurred to Art.
    “The staff, they are gonna serve dinner at four-thirty, as usual. Till then, please go to your rooms. No visitors in your suites. No outside guests, and —” Gloria pierced Art with her gaze, then turned it on Betty “— no fellow residents.” She pointed at the dining-room entrance. “We’re gonna have a hand-wash station over there. And don’t forget to pump.”
    Art heard a noise at the rear door and turned to see the two men from Craig & Lafferty pushing an empty gurney toward the elevator. The taller of the two strode ahead, his eyes furtively sweeping the sitting room. He was trying to hide it, but there was no mistaking the black object folded under his arm. Body bag number two.

CHAPTER 5
    Tuesday morning, Zol turned off Aberdeen Street into Eaglescliffe Avenue. And into Narnia. It might as well have been a fantasy world for all the resemblance the cul-de-sac bore to the rest of the lower city. Gorgeous mansions sat like haughty, overdressed dowagers at a nineteenth-century garden party. At the far end, the sheer face of the Niagara Escarpment defended the enclave from the riffraff to the south with its rampart of wooded limestone. Again, Zol felt uncouth driving his muddy minivan into such opulence. Everyone here would have a Porsche or a Mercedes tucked in the garage.
    Camelot Lodge occupied one of the most well-known heritage structures in Hamilton. It had been built in the 1880s as a mansion for an industrialist’s family. Now it loomed on a snowy island in the circular roadway, where it boasted three stories of intricate stonework, a tall square tower, a round turret, and a forest of chimneys.
    “I guess the previous owners didn’t fuss over their vows of poverty,” Zol told Natasha, who was beside him in the passenger seat.
    “Sorry?” she said.
    “I thought you knew. A few years ago it was full of nuns. A Catholic convent.”
    The massive slate roof capped the original structure and the boxy addition beside it, which included the elevator shaft and glassed-in fire escape. Despite its storied