her maiden name was Misab, and she spent most of her early life in the Soudan. Their only 
child, Lorie, was born eighteen years ago in Paris.
    "Jean was always keen on wildlife. He gave quite a lot of money to various wildlife 
charities, particularly the national parks in Africa. But he was also a hunter, and it 
was while he was hunting that he was mauled by bears and killed. I have a Canadian 
coroner's report on its way."
    Gene forked a piece of steak Into his mouth, and then frowned.
    "Is that all?" he asked her. "What about valuables? Did he collect anything? I 
mean-why is the house so fiercely guarded?"
    "Nothing at all," said Maggie. "I talked to a couple of French diplomats who knew 
him, and they both said that he never collected anything much, and that all they knew 
about him was that he liked his privacy. Oh, and they alsb said that his wife was very 
beautiful, with, what one of them called une grande poitrine"
    "What's une grande poitrine"
    "Big knockers. I would have thought that even your French could have stretched to 
that."
    "Stop being sarcastic and eat your steak."
    They finished their meal, and afterward they walked together past the White House to 
Gene's office. It was a gray, humid day, hi that indecisive period between September and 
October, when the Washington weather can never make up its mind. Up above them, unseen, a 
jet roared down toward Dulles Airport, throttling its way along the difficult flight path 
over the Potomac.
    When they reached the silent, pillared portico of Gene's office, they held hands 
briefly. "Thanks for the lunch." Maggie said. "That's the best steak I've had in weeks."
    "It's a pleasure. Maybe we should do it more often."
    "Do what?" she asked, feigning innocence.
    He looked at her for a moment, and then he leaned forward and kissed her forehead. 
"Whatever it is that good friends do."
    "You will be careful, won't you?"
    "Careful?"
    She pulled her knitted jacket tighter around her. "It's what one of those French 
diplomats said. I didn't tell you before because I thought it sounded ridiculous. But 
it's been nagging me."
    "What was it? 'Beware of the dogs?' "
    "No, it was stranger than that. After he told me all about Mrs. Semple and Lorie, he 
asked if anyone was interested in them as far as marriage was concerned. I said no, I 
didn't think so. But he said if anyone is, warn them about the dance."
    "The dance"? What the hell does that mean?" "I don't know. I told you it sounded 
ridiculous. But I just thought you ought to know. Just in case."
    Gene took her arm, and laughed. His laugh echoed in the portico, and sounded 
strangled and peculiar.
    "My beautiful Maggie," he said, "the last thing I am about to do is marry Lorie 
Semple, let alone her mother. The way she treated me last night, I don't suppose I'll 
even see her again, let alone get the opportunity to pop the question."
    "I don't know," said Maggie. "I've always pictured you with hordes of kids and a 
station-wagon, and a suburban house in Grand Rapids."
    "With Lorie Semple? You've got to be joking." Maggie shrugged. "It's going to hit you 
one day. There was one time when I thought it would have to be me."
    Gene stood there with his dark curly hair blown into tangles by the afternoon breeze. 
He had a square, Democratic-candidate kind of face, but like all Democrats it was capable 
of looking sensitive and sad as well as confident and vigorous.
    "Maggie . . ." he said. But she shook her head and turned away from him.
    "It doesn't matter," she told him gently. "Whatever you do, provided it's the best 
for you, it doesn't matter."
    Then she walked off down the street and left him standing under the tall and 
dignified porch, of his chosen profession.
    About an hour later, he switched off his desk lamp and took off his heavy-rimmed 
spectacles. The report was almost finished, and he reckoned he could tidy it up without 
too much work in the morning. Although it was gloomy in the office, the sky was still 
pale and luminous outside, and he guessed there were three or four hours of good daylight 
left. He shuffled the papers on his desk and then stood up. Maybe he should take a drive 
out to the Semple place and look again for himself.
    An erotic vision of Lorie Semple had been floating around in the back of his mind all 
day, even during the West Indian meeting. He only had to close his eyes for a fraction of 
a second, and he could see that silky, sensuous body, and that beautiful feline face. He 
said to himself, out loud, "That women has gotten under my skin," and he tapped a True 
out of a crumpled pack and lit it.
    Why not do what he'd suggested, and .call on her? There had to be a visitor's bell 
somewhere at the maia gate, and maybe if he rang it and announced himself, instead of 
trying to sneak over the wall like a second-class spy, he might get himself admitted to 
the house the respectable way. He just hoped that Lorie hadn't found his shoe.
    He locked up his filing-cabinet, switched off all the office lights, and went out to 
get his car. It was nearly five by the time he drove out of the city center, and the 
clouds were growing heavier and darker. On the car radio, a preacher was calling for "an 
end to iniquity, O Lord, and an end to all human suffering." He added his own prayer for 
an end to losing expensive footwear in gates.
    It took him half an hour to find the narrow uphill road that led up to the Semple 
place, and he drove past it twice before he recognized it. In the daylight, it somehow 
looked different, although he knew he had taken the right turn-off when he drove through 
the overhanging tunnel of trees, and emerged at the crest of the hill by the high spiked 
wall. He turned the sharp corner, and there was the wrought-iron gate. The shoe, as he 
had feared, was gone.
    He climbed out of the car and walked up to the bars. Even during the day, the Semple 
grounds looked gloomy and overcast, and the leaves of the oaks rustled sadly in the wind. 
The drive stretched ahead of him, and disappeared around the corner, and he knew that he 
was going to have to discover what lay beyond it. He stepped back a few paces, looking 
right and left, and eventually saw it. A small brass bell, with the name Semple engraved 
around it in Gothic lettering.
    He pushed it, twice. Then he paced up and down, his ankles teased by tumbling leaves, 
waiting for someone to answer.
    It was almost ten minutes before he saw any sign of life. Then he heard the whine of 
an electric motor, and around the corner in the drive appeared a bright red golf cart 
with a red-and-white striped awning, driven, by the stoney-faced Mathieu.
    The golf cart took almost five minutes to arrive at the gates. Mathieu halted it a 
few yards away, and dismounted. Then he walked up to Gene, and examined him through the 
bars.
    "I've come to call on Lorie," said Gene, in a louder and more uncertain voice than 
he'd hoped. "If she's in, I'd like to say hello."
    Mathieu appeared to give this some thought. Then he began to wave his hands backward 
and forward as if to say "no."