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a polo field.”
    “Don’t tell me—! You’re absolutely insufferable, Farnol, insufferable! You keep your voice down—not another word about these rumours, you understand! That’s an order!”
    He took a sudden step backwards and I realized that Farnol had abruptly shut the door of his room in his face. Savanna raised a fist as if he were about to batter down the door, then suddenly he went marching down the hall towards his own bedroom. Marching: it struck me that for a man who a moment ago had sounded drunk he was remarkably steady on his feet.
    I closed the door, finished my toilette and got into bed. But I couidn’t sleep; I could smell a story like a magnetic perfume, ink brewed by M. Coty. I tossed and turned for an hour, then I made my decision. I got out of bed and put on my red velvet peignoir. It had been bought for Miss Toodles Ryan, the girl friend of Mayor Honey Fitz, but Toodles was annoyed with Hizzoner for some reason and she had given me the gown. Each time I put it on I felt the delicious thrill of being a kept woman, if only by proxy: the safest and least demanding way. Only a year before he was assassinated I mentioned Toodles Ryan to President Kennedy and he, Boston Irish and a ladies’ man, winked and smiled. Honey Fitz’s hormones were still alive and well in 1962.
    I looked at my hair in the mirror, saw that my tossing and turning had made it into a fright wig. I hastily pushed it up, looked around for something to hold it in place, saw the derby, the bowler hat I had worn that day while riding and shoved it on my head. I remembered one of the few pieces of advice my mother had given me when I told her I was determined to go out into the sinful Protestant world and make my own way: “Always wear a hat, sweetheart. That way you’ll always be thought of as a lady, if only from the neck up.”
    Clasping my notebook and pencil I opened my door, crossed the corridor and tapped gently on Major Farnol’s door. Then I opened it and stepped inside. And felt the pistol pressing against the back of my neck.
    The electric light was switched on. Major Farnol was dressed in pale blue silk pyjamas and looked absolutely gorgeous.
    “They’re not mine—I found them in a drawer. I think they belong to one of the A.D.C.s. Heaven knows what sort of chap wears things like these.”
    “You’re wearing them.”
    “Just as well, if a half-naked woman calls on me in the middle of the night. Do you usually wear a bowler when you go prowling bedrooms?”
    I crossed to a chair beside the bed. “You may get back into bed, Major. You’re perfectly safe. This is a professional call.”
    “Do you charge for your services?”
    I don’t know where Major Farnol learned his badinage with women. I discovered later that he had had considerable success with them, but it could not have been because of his conversational approach. “Put your gun away, Major, and get into bed. I’ve taken you at your word that you’re a liar and I don’t believe you when you say there is no plot to assassinate the King.”
    He put the pistol on a bedside table and got beneath the covers. Thinking back, it was one of the strangest interviews I ever conducted. Both of us were aware of the atmosphere around us: he in his glamorous pyjamas, I in my peignoir (even if the bowler did dampen the effect), and the wide bed itself. But I was there on business and I was determined to keep it that way.
    “Tell me what you really think is going on, Major.”
    He shook his head. “Miss O’Brady, I am what is called a political agent.”
    “Is that something like a ward boss? My father is one in Boston.” I explained what my father did in the interests of democracy and the Democratic Party, which are not necessarily the same thing.
    “No, I don’t think there’s too much similarity. I suppose one could say I’m a cross between your Secret Service and one of your Indian agents from the Wild West.”
    “But that’s exactly what a ward boss