Chapter 5: One Room

The trustee questioned them separately in the library, for an hour each, and he wrote down every answer in pencil.

He was a dull man with a gray coat and a gray voice.

"When did you meet?" he asked Bryony.

"Recently."

"How recently?"

"A few weeks ago. At the hotel."

"What was he wearing?"

"A suit."

"Which one?"

"The gray one," she said, because it was the only one she knew.

He wrote that down.

When Bryony came out, Holbrook was waiting in the hall, and he said, low, "He asked me what you smelled like."

"What did you say?"

"Butter."

"That's not romantic."

"It's true," Holbrook said. "He wrote it down."

The trustee left at eleven, and he told them very politely that he would be back.

Cordelia's housekeeper led Bryony upstairs to a bedroom the size of her whole apartment.

There was a bed against the far wall, wide enough for four people, with a white cover turned back.

A nightgown lay folded on the pillow.

It was silk, with thin straps, and it was not hers.

"Mrs. Draper bought it this evening," the housekeeper said. "In your size."

"How did she know my size?"

"Mrs. Draper knows many things."

Bryony stared at the nightgown.

Behind her, Holbrook shut the door.

"I'll take the floor," he said.

"There's a rug, and no pillow."

"I'll manage."

"The trustee said he'd check the bed."

"He will check that it was slept in."

"He'll check that we both did."

Holbrook exhaled through his nose and rubbed his jaw.

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