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came in?”
    â€œBecause you were sad about Nikos.”
    â€œBecause I was so goddam mad at the goddam frustrating position I’m in,” she said. “I can’t prove anything and yet I know! ”
    It had happened just a little too fast for me to be sure what league I was playing in. She had the facts upside-down, but she was right about the core of the truth. Someone had made certain Nikos wouldn’t survive his next angina attack.
    My mouth felt dry. “Have you thought of the possibility that someone else might have shifted pills on Nikos? Because, seriously, you can count Doc Partridge out. He’s old, but he’s top-flight.”
    The brown eyes narrowed.
    â€œI mean, if the pills were shifted,” I said.
    â€œWhatever those pills were, I tell you they weren’t nitro,” she said. “I would have smelled them on his breath.”
    Well I knew they hadn’t been nitro, so she was right about that.
    â€œWhat you’re saying doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “How could anybody have shifted the pills? Nikos always carried them in his vest pocket. He wouldn’t have walked across the room without them. They were the difference to him between living and dying—and I can tell you, Mark, Nikos didn’t want to die.”
    â€œWhat about at night—when he went to bed?”
    â€œHe kept them on the bedside table.” Then she exploded. “You stinker!” she said. “You think I spent my nights with him?”
    â€œDid you?” I said. “If you open up a murder investigation, it’s a question that’ll be asked, Jan.”
    â€œDamn you!” she said.
    â€œJust what were your duties as secretary? You say you didn’t type—clerical work?”
    â€œI was his appointment secretary,” she said. “I kept track of who he had to see—and like when.”
    â€œHe had access to this room,” I said. “Key on his side of the door.”
    â€œHe didn’t sleep very well,” she said. “Fits and starts, sort of. If he had an idea in the middle of the night, he’d come in and wake me up.”
    â€œAn idea about appointments?”
    â€œI think I’ve decided you are a nasty jerk!” she said.
    â€œYou brought all this up, not I,” I said. “Let’s get back to the pill bottle on his bedside table. You spent your nights here, waiting for him to get ideas. Who spent time in the other room with him?”
    â€œThe key was on his side of the door,” she said. “These rooms are soundproofed. You ought to know that. You work here.”
    â€œI’ll bet you’re a wonderful guesser,” I said.
    â€œI think I’d like it if you went back to the party,” she said.
    â€œLet me make something quite clear to you, baby,” I said. “If Nikos went to Doc Partridge for a prescription for nitro pills, that’s what he got. If the pills in the bottle when he had his attack weren’t nitro, then somebody shifted them. If you go to the police and open up this can of peas, you’re going to be asked all these questions by someone who’ll demand answers. And everyone else who was close to Nikos will be asked questions about him, about you, and about anyone else who was close to him. I’m not being a jerk. I want to help. Who are the very close ones who would come and go in Nikos’s bedroom?”
    I could see her struggling with a decision. I watched her, thinking Chambrun would be pleased with the way I was handling things. She’d opened the door for me to ask questions I couldn’t have asked on my own.
    â€œIt wasn’t just nighttime,” Jan said.
    â€œHow’s that?”
    â€œHe spent a lot of time propped up in bed in there—holding court, you might say. People came and went in droves. The hall door was left on the latch, so he wouldn’t have to get up to open it if anybody