My room at the Cytherea.
Monday night.

Ichiban no Akuma-chan,
    I do not for a moment question the excellence of your advice -- it is as religion with me. I do rather wish, however, that I had asked you just how long one is supposed to keep up this hopes, dreams, and aspirations business. You will recall that I have, effectively, only eight days in Venice, of which four have now elapsed. Should it turn out that the process of lulling into a false sense of security requires a minimum of a fortnight -- but no, if it were so, you would have told me.
    What I mean is that a point presumably arrives at which one stops admiring the young man's fine soul and noble intellect -- or rather, of course, still admires them tremendously, but admits that one's admiration is tinged with just the faintest soupcon of carnality. And the question which perplexes me is how I am to know, with the enchanting Kurama, when that point has been reached.
    The trouble is that in spite of my efforts I feel he may already have some suspicion of the nature of my interest in him. He will have become accustomed, in the course of his distasteful employment, to thinking the worst of everyone.  It would, moreover, be typical of the practice of the IRS to let me spend a great deal of time and effort admiring his soul and intellect without intending it to do me any ultimate good. If my fears on this point were to be well-founded, then, it seems to me, I might as well abandon subtlety altogether and adopt the more forthright and vigorous approach recommended by the dramatist Shakespeare. On the other hand, I would not wish to prejudice, by precipitate action, any good I may already have done myself by my restraint.
    This morning I began to wonder if it might not be sensible, rather than spend a holiday altogether unenlivened by the pleasures of the flesh, to try my luck with the quite pretty waiter who brings my breakfast. There is something in his half-shy manner which suggests that his favors would be less hard to come by than those of the enchanting Kurama: one would not, I think, have to talk much about his soul.
    And yet afterwards, as we traveled peacefully along the Brenta towards Padua, with the wake of the boat tumbling the reeds at the waterside, I was so moved by the beauty of the surroundings and of Kurama's profile that I felt I would willingly devote the whole week, even if in vain, to undivided pursuit of him. Well, Akuma-chan, you will mock me again for being incurably sentimental.
    The purpose of the excursion down the Brenta, from the point of view of the Art Lover, is to observe and appreciate the development of the Palladian villa. In the sixteenth century, it seems, all the Venetians decided to go and live in the country. This was due, I suppose, to the republication, as part of the Renaissance, of Horace's Epistles, in which the poet speaks highly of the simple rustic life. Feeling that if they were going to live the simple life they ought to do the thing properly, the Venetians looked around for someone to build them villas as similar as possible to that occupied by Horace. Andrea Palladio, therefore, then a rising young architect, went out and bought a book by the Roman author Vitruvius, also published as part of the Renaissance, and read the chapter on building villas. That, at least, is what he meant to read: as it happens, misled by the obscurity of the Latin, he actually read the chapter on building temples. This explains why the Veneto is full of villas looking more or less like the Parthenon, with the addition of the usual domestic offices.
    From what one might call the social point of view, the day was not a success. Whenever I managed to draw Kurama away from the main body of Art Lovers, with a view to admiring his soul and intellect, the Major would appear suddenly out of nowhere, crying 'Jiminy Cricket, this place is quite something, isn't it?' In the end I abandoned the unequal struggle.
    Kaen's husband still regards me with an unfriendly eye and seems to be steering her away from me -- I was hardly able to talk to her at all. I was obliged, on the other hand, to talk a great deal to Sadra, who still had hopes of wrangling with Kuroko-san. She had two complaints about the excursion: first, that we had not visited enough villas; second, that we had arrived in Padua too late to appreciate the artistic glories of that city. I pointed out in vain that to remedy either of these shortcomings would of necessity aggravate the other. To distract her from any direct conflict with Kuroko-san, I had to keep talking about the Federal Trade Commission Act. This was rather wearing: it might have been less so if I actually knew anything about the Federal Trade Commission Act.
    The Major's conversation at dinner followed, to begin with, its usual pattern, save that his anecdotes tend now to be couched in the form of useful advice, designed to assist me in various difficult situations: 'The thing to do, if you're stranded on shore after hours in Valletta -- ' 'What you want to remember, if you're running low on water in the Western Desert and Joe Arab's getting a bit edgy --' I attended as little as possible, and went back to worrying about Desdemona. In certain predicaments, I may well regret this.
    Towards the end of the meal, however, he raised an entirely different subject. Leaning towards me and shielding his mouth, as one wishing to speak in confidence, he asked me if I remembered the French guy Kuroko-san had been talking about. He proved to be alluding to the late King Henri III of France, mentioned by Kuroko-san as having visited the Villa Malcontenta on his return from Poland in 1583. She had further mentioned that his reign had been of short duration, attributing this to the aversion felt by his subjects to his effeminate habits.
    'Don't know if you followed,' said the Major, 'what she said about his effeminate habits?'
    'I gathered,' I said, 'that the practices which attracted an unfavorable press consisted of something more than an excessive use of eau de Cologne on the handkerchief.'
    'Well -- ' the Major appeared embarrassed. 'Word to the wise, and so forth. Nod's as good as a wink. No names, no pack drill.'
    'Yes?' I said, trying to be helpful.
    'Saw quite a lot of that thing in the Army, I'm afraid. Courts Martial and so forth. Got to know the signs. Well -- just between you and me and the gatepost, m'dear, I wouldn't be surprised if young Kurama over there wasn't a bit that way.
 

    It was fortunate that I had just finished my cinnamon roll -- I doubled over with a crack of laughter, developing into moderate howls.

    'Do keep it down, Ysabeth,' Akuma-chan said. 'People are staring.'
 

'No names, no pack drill -- don't want to say anything against the lad. Just -- not the sort of guy I'd want to share a tent with. Hope you don't mind my mentioning it, m'dear.'
    I was not unduly surprised by this suggestion: it is almost invariably the first thing said about men with profiles by men without profiles. Indeed, it is a benevolent disposition of Providence that those who express most dread of an unorthodox advance are usually those whom Nature has most effectively protected from any risk of one. Still, the remark placed me in a dilemma. Principle required me to say that it was, if true, no matter for criticism: expediency, on the other hand, urged me to impress on the Major my invincible prudishness. Seeking an answer which should reconcile the two:
    'Unless you suppose me,' I said coldly, 'to have designs of some sort on the young man, I cannot imagine why you should think the question of any interest to me. I would very much prefer not to discuss the matter.'
    'Sorry, m'dear,' said the Major. 'Just thought -- well, thought you might be getting a bit smitten with him. Wouldn't like to see you pick a wrong 'un.'
    'Watashi no Bob," I said, raising a Hotohori-like eyebrow, 'I am most obliged to you for your concern. But I am not a swooning adolescent -- I am a grown-up woman in practice at the Michigan Bar.'
    I was rather pleased with this, since there is, after all, a sense in which it is actually true. The Major was abject in his apologies. Allowing myself to be only somewhat mollified, I excused myself from coffee and came back to my room, to enjoy in privacy the pleasures of writing to you. The others having already withdrawn, the Major was left to entertain Gel Sadra. You may think this a bit hard on Sadra, but if she ever finds herself running low on water in the Western Desert, at least it won't be my fault if she doesn't know what to do about it.
    I shall not mail this tomorrow morning but shall wait to see if anything of interest happens during the excursion to Verona. We had the choice between the full day excursion tomorrow, which includes Asolo and Vicenza, and the afternoon excursion on Friday. Hearing Kurama sign up for the longer expedition, I naturally did likewise. Unfortunately, the Major had done the same. Still, perhaps the Major will miss the bus somewhere and be stranded. Or perhaps Kurama and I will both miss the bus somewhere and be stranded together -- that would be even better.
 

    'I say,' said Karasu, 'you don't think the IRS guy made a pass at the Major and the Major, in defense of his honor -- '

    'No,' said Hotohori.

    'Oh, all right,' said Karasu.
 

Terrace of the Cytherea.
Nearly lunchtime on Wednesday.
    It has been known in times past, Akuma-chan, when others have spoke disparagingly of men, suggesting that they are as a sex altogether worthless and contemptible, for me to offer a word or two in their defense. I have been heard to say tolerantly that some of my best friends were men, though if I had a daughter I might not wish her to marry one. Not any more, Akuma-chan. Henceforth, when the subject of men arises, look for me among those most absolute in condemnation. They are a deplorable sex. Let me tell you what happened on the excursion to Verona; and what happened afterwards.
    Kuroko-san, for some reason, was not available to accompany the excursion: we were dependent for guidance on the bus driver, who did not feel the same anxiety for our intellectual improvement: he confined himself, in each of the places we visited, to setting us down in the main square and telling us at what hour he intended to take us up again.
    It fell to me, in these circumstances, to act as interpreter for Kurama and the Major, neither of whom speaks any Italian. I myself am not the linguist you are kind enough to think me; but I can ask the way with reasonable conviction and usually understand at least some of the answer. Moreover, by the grace of Hotohori-Love, I was in possession of guidebooks to all the towns we were to visit, so that I was also able to act as guide.
    At Asolo I did rather well. The foreign Art Lovers, despite the heat, went rushing off up the hill to look at the Castle; but I, from my perusal of the guidebook, was able to tell my companions that we were already in the very square in which the poet Browning had been inspired to write his celebrated poem 'Pippa Passes' -- the one, if my memory serves me, in which there was joy in the morning.
    'This charming and picturesque little town,' I said, 'due, no doubt, to being built on a steep hillside, has evidently escaped the attention of developers since the Middle Ages. We may safely assume it to be much as it was in Browning's day. It seems probable, therefore, that he wrote the poem to which I have referred on the terrace of that rather attractive cafe, refreshing his Muse, I expect, with a Campari soda or something like that. By doing likewise, we may be able to recreate something of the experience which inspired his immortal lines.'
    In Vicenza I did rather badly. If you ever happen,Akuma-chan, to be in the main square of Vicenza and want to get from there to the Olympic Theater, final masterpiece of the architect Palladio, do not rely on Hotohori-Love's guidebook. If you do, you will find yourself, before you discover your mistake, halfway down the road to Milan, trying to explain what it was about the Church of Saints Felix and Fortunate that made you think it worth a detour. You will also find yourself having to walk two miles back in the blazing heat to get to the Theater. If you were not an Art Lover, you might decide at that stage to give the Theater a miss; but my conscience would not stretch so far -- besides, I had told them we were going there.
 

    'My guidebooks,' said Hotohori, driving his fork rather crossly into one of the scampi which the airport restaurant had just obligingly unfrozen for him, 'all contain excellent maps, all perfectly clear and accurate and straightforward. If Giullia can't tell the difference between left and right -- '

    'No, of course not,' said Akuma-chan kindly, 'not your fault in the least, Hotohori."
 

    After all this, the enchanting Kurama refused to be pleased with the Theater. It is a most attractive building, designed with great ingenuity to persuade one, when in the auditorium, that one is in an open air theater somewhere in ancient Greece. I invited my comrades to admire this masterpiece of deception. Kurama declined.
    'I don't like it,' he said. 'I don't like looking down streets that aren't there. I don't like looking at the ceiling and thinking it's the sky. I don't like all this endless deception.' There is no pleasing some people.
    In Verona I did superbly. By that time I had worked out the strategy for the successful guide. It's no use looking through the guidebook for something interesting and then trying to get there: it may turn out to be miles away. No, the thing to do is to discover where one is to start with and then find something in the guidebook which says that it's interesting -- much inconvenience may thus be avoided.
    By looking round a bit during lunch I established that we were in a restaurant near the corner of the Via Oberdan. Identifying the place on the map, I was pleased to see that there were several blobs of brown coloring in close proximity: brown blobs indicate artistic significance. There were, it is true, other blobs of brown some inches away. Pursuant, however, to the policy mentioned above, I ignored them.
    After lunch, therefore, I was able with perfect confidence to lead my companions to the Piazza dei Signori and the Piazza dell' Erbe and to point out to them those architectural features of the Palazzo del Capitano and the Palazzo dei Ragione which the guidebook considered deserving of attention. The information I gave them may not, I admit, have been in every detail entirely accurate, for the guidebook was in Italian: my knowledge of Italian architectural terms is sketchy, you might say nonexistent, as is indeed my knowledge of English architectural terms. My translation was therefore a bit emancipated.
    We continued to the Cathedral, where I had a further inspiration. Verona lies in a more-or-less circular loop of river and we had set out from the approximate center -- from the point, I mean, equidistant from each point on the bank: according to the laws of geometry, it seemed to me, we should be able, by walking along the bank and taking, when we chose to do so, a turning perpendicular to it, to return, without retracing our steps, to our point of departure.
    Knowing how infrequently in the real world things obey the laws of mathematics or any other logical system, I would not, perhaps, but for the wine we had drunk at lunch, ventured to put this theory to any empirical test; but Verona showed a proper respect for the laws of geometry. Leaving the Cathedral, we walked some distance along the bank, observing on our left the grandeur of the view across the river and on our right a row of antique shops, of professional interest to the Major;then, turning off at right angles to the river, we proceeded, so far as possible, in a straight line; and found ourselves, just as Euclid would have expected, back in the main square.
    I was astonished at my success. I had taken my companions on exactly the tour I had planned and had thrown in for good measure the Churches of Saint Anastasia and Saint Nicholas, which had presented themselves in our path. In the latter, I had even managed to identify the Madonna and Child by Tiepolo, highly spoken of by the guidebook, but treated by the Church with a rather cavalier lack of distinction. It seemed unwise to attempt to improve on my achievement.
    'You will observe,' I said, 'that this spacious and elegant square is amply furnished with open-air cafes, in which the traveler may find rest and refreshment. Shall we avail ourselves of this circumstance?'
    'If you'll excuse me, m'dear,' said the Major, 'I think I'll just pop back and have another shufti at those antique shops.'
    'Are you sure you won't get lost?' I asked. Much as I would have liked to lose the Major, I felt responsible for him.
    'Trust an old campaigner to get back to base,' said the Major cheerfully.
    And off he went, leaving me alone with Kurama. We sat down together, under the shade of an awning, in one of the cafes previously mentioned.
    The time had come, I felt, to talk about Catullus. Verona, you will recall, is the poet's birthplace. If I could not manage, by judicious quotation from the most ardent of lyric poets, to indicate the warmth of my feelings, there was, I thought, no hope for me. With no need on this subject to resort to the guidebook -- his work was the chief comfort of my susceptible adolescence -- I spoke sympathetically of his attachment to Clodia, severely of her unkindness. Kurama chose to defend her.
    'I don't see why you think,' he said, 'that she ought to have been so grateful for having all this poetry written to her. I expect your friend Catullus got more fun out of writing it than she did out of reading it -- she'd probably rather have been taken out to dinner or something.' And more to the like effect.
    'Maa,' I said at last. 'It is natural that you should take her side. Your own experience, no doubt, is all of being the object of passion, rather than of suffering it.'
    'I don't know why you suppose,' he said, looking down demurely in such a manner as to display the full luxury of his lovely eyelashes, 'that I am the object of so much admiration. Or that I am always indifferent to it.'
    The reappearance at this stage of the Major, who could perfectly well have gone on wandering round antique shops for another half-hour, seemed singularly ill-timed. If the maps he had purchased, supposedly of antiquarian interest, turned out to be fakes, it would be, I felt, a deserved consequence of his over-hasty selection.
    'Don't let me interrupt,' said the Major. 'Can see you two were having a good old chinwag.'
    'I was complaining,' I said, 'of the way I am treated by the IRS.'
    'Giullia doesn't think,' said Kurama, 'that we are fair to her.'
    'Oh no,' I said, 'I didn't say that. I could never say, Kurama, that you were anything but fair. What I am complaining of is not your fairness: it is your coldness, your lack of feeling, your indifference to human suffering.'
    'Saa,' said the Major, 'only doing your job, of course. I'm sure the little lady doesn't mean it personally, do you, m'dear?'
    'I'm afraid she does,' said Kurama. 'But I hope to persuade her to think more kindly of us.'
    My confidence in Catullus seemed vindicated, for this was not a remark, you will surely agree, Akuma-chan, which a well-brought-up young man could make without intending some encouragement. Nor, as you shall hear, was this the only cause given me for optimism.
    We continued to sit in the cafe, reviving ourselves with coffee for our homeward journey. The Major was greatly pleased with his maps, and would have liked to show them to us; but they had been carefully rolled and wrapped and he felt it unwise to undo them. Fearing that the maps would put him in mind of some incident in his military career, I agreed hastily that it would be most imprudent.
    'Giullia,' said Kurama after a few minutes, 'did you know you have a bit of whipped cream on your nose?'
    'I didn't know,' I answered. 'But I readily believe it.' If one drinks tall lattes with whipped cream, it is usual, after half an hour or so, to get a certain amount of whipped cream on one's face.
    'If you'll excuse me -- ' he said. He rose from his chair and took a clean handkerchief from his pocket. Then he leant over me and, resting his left hand lightly on my shoulder, gently brushed the whipped cream from my nose.
    This produced in me, as you will imagine, Akuma-chan, a passionate agitation, gravely affecting my breathing and heartbeat. Yet it was of the most pleasant and hopeful kind, for I could not suppose that any young man, unless utterly heartless and lost to all sense of shame, could conduct himself in such a way towards a woman whose advances were unacceptable.
    'Excuse me, m'dear,' said the Major. 'Just got to see a man about a dog.'
    'When we get back to Venice,' I said, taking advantage of his temporary absence, 'instead of paying the exorbitant prices which they charge in the bar of the Cytherea, why don't you come and have an aperitif in my room? I've got some brandy I bought in the duty-free shop.' If I had misconstrued his behavior, I thought, he could always say that he didn't like brandy before dinner.
    'I'd love to,' answered Kurama. 'How kind of you, Giullia.'
    You will imagine with what impatience I now looked forward to our return; how bitterly, though silently, I cursed the late arrival of the bus driver; with what equal fervor, though in equal silence, I urged him to drive back at all speed along the autostrada. Nor, during the drive to Venice or our brief journey by boat to our hotel, was there anything in Kurama's smiles or amiable manner to warn me of the unspeakable treachery he was proposing to commit.
    We arrived at the landing stage of the Cytherea.
    'How about a brief snifter in the bar?' said the Major.
    'You're forgetting, Bob,' said the enchanting Kurama, sharing between us a smile of angelic sweetness, 'Giullia has kindly invited us to drink brandy in her room.'
    O Perfidy, thy name is man. They are, as I have said, a deplorable sex, and never again shall you hear me speak well of them. If I could think kindly of one, it would be of a young man of obliging disposition, such as Karasu. Karasu, you may say, has his faults; but at least he can be prevailed on to engage in a health-giving frolic without expecting one to talk for weeks on end about his soul. Karasu, so far as I am aware, has never claimed to have such a thing.
 

    'I most certainly do have a soul,' said Karasu.

    'Well, don't tell Giullia,' said Akuma-chan. 'It'll only upset her.'
 

    I am old enough, I hope, to bear philosophically a reverse in the lists of Aphrodite; but to be obliged, in addition, to offer the Major the hospitality of my room, not to mention large quantities of duty-free brandy, was more than I could easily endure. By the time the long day was over, I was too shattered in spirit to take up my pen to write to you; I sought consolation in the Internal Revenue Code.
    After a morning of looking at churches, I have returned to the Cytherea for lunch. I shall have the company, it seems, of the beautiful but perfidious Kurama -- I have just seen him coming across the bridge from the annex. Let him not look to me for kind words or compliments -- I shall upbraid him for every infamy committed by his service since the institution of income tax.
    In a mood, as I have indicated, of the most bitter misandry, this leaves me

    'Giullia is being unreasonable,' said Hotohori. 'The young man gave her no encouragement beyond mere civility.'

    'There is,' said Akuma-chan, 'a postscript.'
 

Wednesday evening.
    The deed is done -- Clarissa lives. No time to write more.

    'Who,' said Karasu, 'is Clarissa?'

    'Clarissa,' said Hotohori sadly, 'is the eponymous heroine of the celebrated novel by Mr. Richardson. The phrase used by Giullia is that, if my recollection serves me, in which the villain Lovelace announces the conquest of her long-defended virtue.'

    'Nanda,' said Karasu, 'do you mean Giullia's scored with the man from the IRS?'

    'It would seem so,' said Kiyoshi-dono. 'I hope that's not going to complicate things. They're calling my flight -- I'd better go. I'll call you tomorrow, Akuma-chan, as soon as I know anything definite.'

    I hope my farewells to Kiyoshi-dono did not seem unduly off-hand. All my goodwill went with him; but I was a little preoccupied -- I had remembered something curious about the news from Italy.

    'I'm sorry, Ysabeth,' Akuma-chan said. 'I have an Opinion to write on Proposition 13A. I can't spend the day in cooking and idle gossip.'

    She was quite wrong in supposing that she would have been put to any trouble for my entertainment: the tastes of the scholar are simple to the point of austerity. Stir-fry of some kind for lunch, with a salad and some tamagoyaki; a Sun workstation, Netscape 4.30, and a T-1 connection; for dinner, a plain pork chop, with perhaps long-grain rice --

    'No,' said Akuma-chan. 'Moreover, I have plans for the evening which do not admit of the presence of an inactive party.'

    In that case, naturally, there was nothing more to be said. Akuma-chan has an amiable arrangement for the weekends with a young colleague of mine: I would not for the world encroach on the pleasures of either. I spent Sunday, therefore, in Burns Park: first forcing myself to place a call to my hosts in absentia, Minamino Tomoe and her cousin Kaoru.

    The conversation was rather shorter than I should have expected, given that Tomoe first denied any recent trouble involving her other cousin and then brusquely reassured me that he could not be dead in Venice, as he was presently on official Reikai business. She pointed out that it was not an uncommon name.

    The rest of her part of the conversation consisted of mono- and disyllabic utterances, as she explained that the weather was fine, that Kaoru was presently being a member of the studio audience of a situation comedy entitled 'Child's Toys,' that they had not yet located their husband, and that the immediate family of the Kurama I knew were presently vacationing in Hokkaido. If I were given to paranoid fantasies, I should have thought that she was anxious to be rid of me.

    I therefore spent the rest of the day conversing with the cats, checking my e.mail, and reading back copies of The New York Times: all, in their way, instructive occupations. Indeed, my former astronomy professor finally returned my messages, apologizing for her absence while working on her latest invention.

    I politely inquired whether it were finished yet, and she told me that it still needed a little work. This time, she was attempting to create clones which grew on a plant whose seed one might plant in one's own garden, which would be rather more efficient than the waiting lists at Yuugao Labs or similar institutions. Although the seeded clones were fully functional otherwise, none of them, despite extensive tests and exposure to various environments (including those of some Reikai detectives with whom she had a reciprocal arrangement), had developed even subhuman intelligence.

    I wished her the best of luck in finding an answer sooner rather than later -- as of course she would find one; it being a universal law that with enough time she should -- and went back to flipping through newsprint while waiting for a new message to arrive.

    Akuma-chan telephoned me at half-past three. Kiyoshi-dono's news, so far as it went, was, she felt, satisfactory. He had not yet seen Giullia -- accommodation had been found for her in the little resort of Chioggia, on the other side of the lagoon -- but would be dining with her that evening. His client, having chosen to enter the Ningenkai at Cyprus and make the journey thence by sea, had become unwell during the journey and had fortunately not yet recovered.

    'Fortunately?' I said, with a touch of severity.

    'One wishes him, of course, no harm.' The smoothness of Akuma-chan's voice was not impaired by the intervening telephone wires. 'It does seem convenient, however, that Kiyoshi is free for the time being to pursue his inquiries on Giullia's behalf without having to initiate his client into the relevant portions of this year's Internal Revenue Code.'

    'Have his inquiries made any progress?'

    'He hasn't managed to see Kuroko-san yet or talk to the police. But he's been in touch with a man at the American Embassy who seems to know something of the matter. So far as one can tell at present, there's nothing solid on Giullia at all. It's just that she made a rather unfortunate first impression on the police. They knew from the start, you see, about her exchanges with the young man from the IRS: the whole affair was apparently common knowledge among the staff of the Cytherea from the management to the chambermaids. So when they began to question her and she said she'd never heard of him, they found her attitude suspicious.'

    'I can see that they might,' I said. 'Why did she say that she'd never heard of him?'

    'Ysabeth-chan, it's quite understandable. They obviously told her that they were inquiring into the death by violence of a Minamino Shuuichi-san. It does not precisely occur to one that a person referred to as Shuuichi is someone one knows as Kurama. And Giullia, naturally, wouldn't know his surname.'

    'Would you care,' I asked, 'to justify the adverb?'

    'How could she have known his surname? Gel Sadra doesn't seem to have mentioned it when she introduced them. How do you suggest that she should afterwards have discovered it? Would you expect her, in the middle of telling the young man about his beautiful eyelashes and quoting Catullus, suddenly to ask his surname? Going on, perhaps, to demand such further particulars as his place of birth, his mother's maiden name and the number of his passport? Of course not. Still less can you imagine that Giullia would stoop, in search of such information, to questioning their mutual friends or prying through the young man's correspondence? Watashi no Ysabeth-chan..." Her voice seemed to melt in a delicate mixture of amusement and reproach: an effect, I am told, which has caused a number of opponents, realizing the absurdity of their submissions, to settle hastily over the luncheon adjournment on terms favorable to her client.

    'Atashi no Akuma-chan,' I said, 'you quite persuade me that no woman of breeding and refinement could be expected to know the surname of any young man whom she was trying to seduce. I hope that Kiyoshi-dono will be equally successful with the Italian police. Was there anything else that made a bad impression on them?'

    'Well -- ' said Akuma-chan. 'They seem to have got rather excited about Giullia's Internal Revenue Code. I'm sorry, Ysabeth, I'll have to go -- there's someone at the door.'
 

    I saw no prospect, until I knew why Giullia's Internal Revenue Code had disturbed the equanimity of the Italian police, of giving my attention to Miss Piggy, charming as she is. On the following morning, therefore, I proceeded directly to the Michigan Building. Not pausing to announce myself in the Paralegals' Room, I climbed the stone staircase to the third floor. Being occupied for the purposes of their profession by the younger members of the firm, that portion of the third floor is commonly referred to as the Nursery. The Nursery comprises three rooms, of varying sizes: I shall not delay my narrative to explain the finely balanced considerations of decorum, convenience and seniority by virtue of which Akuma-chan has the small one to herself, Hotohori and Karasu share the large one and Kiyoshi-dono occupies its overgrown closet.

    For conversation, their natural tendency is to gather in the large one. I found Akuma-chan already there, repeating to Hotohori and Karasu the news from Kiyoshi-dono which she had given me on the previous evening.

    'Akuma-chan,' I said, 'what's all this about the Internal Revenue Code?'

    'Ah, yes,' said Akuma-chan. 'The Internal Revenue Code. It appears that a copy of this year's Internal Revenue Code, inscribed with Giullia's name and professional address, was found a few feet away from the corpse.'

    'Oh, strewth,' said Karasu.

    'Zannen desu ne,' said Hotohori.

    'The Italian police,' continued Akuma-chan, 'with childish naïveté, took this to be a clue. As your own more sophisticated minds will immediately perceive, it is, of course, nothing of the kind. One cannot infer Giullia's presence from the presence of her Internal Revenue Code.'

    'Indeed no,' said Hotohori. 'Any more than one could infer, from the presence last Thursday fortnight in Dexter County Court of a copy of Cole on Intellectual Property, clearly inscribed with my name, to indicate that it was my property, purchased out of my own resources, that I myself was appearing before that learned and august tribunal; or that I was absent from Ann Arbor; or that, being in Ann Arbor, I had no need of the volume in question for advising my clients. It can merely be inferred that certain members of this firm -- '

    'I said I was sorry,' said Karasu dangerously. 'There's no need to keep on about it.'

    'That certain members of this firm,' continued Hotohori, 'whose names I shall not mention because they have apologized and I, as was my duty, have forgiven them, have very little notion, when it comes to books, of the difference between ware no and nare no.'

    'Exactly,' said Akuma-chan. Karasu, overcome by the joy of Hotohori's forgiveness, said nothing.

    'Have you,' I asked, 'heard anything more from Giullia?'

    'As a matter of fact,' said Akuma-chan, 'there was another letter this morning. I was just going to read it.'

Terrace of the Cytherea.
Thursday evening.

Ichiban no Akuma-chan,
    My letters to you -- are they mere ephemera, stop-gap economies for telephone calls? Or are they to serve, in half a century's time, when you are retired from high judicial office and I, too improvident to afford retirement, am still pursuing the vain chimaira of last year's income tax, am advising my clients from the comfort of a wheelchair -- are they then to serve as a journal or memoir, when we seek diversion in reminiscence? If so, it would be absurd, though nothing I now write can reach Ann Arbor before me, to end the correspondence with yesterday's letter. The postscript, it is true, will tell that I had my way. But when you ask me how I achieved it, I shall have forgotten; and when I ask you whether I enjoyed it, you will be unable to remind me; and when we say to each other that surely there was some curious and interesting sequel, but cannot quite remember what it was, there will be nothing to recall it to our aging memories. For the avoidance of which and the resolution of all doubts, I shall continue to write until tomorrow evening.
    My postscript may have occasioned you some surprise, following, as I recollect, a passage in which I spoke with some bitterness of Kurama's behavior and announced my intention to upbraid him severely. On the way to lunch, however, I happened to call to mind some advice given me by my Aunt Nabiki, who told me that the surest way to a man's affections was to let him think he knew more about something than you did. It seemed worth trying -- my Aunt Nabiki must be regarded as an authority on such matters, for she has had four husbands; though I cannot actually recall her thinking that any of them knew better than she did on any subject whatsoever.
    On the previous evening, as I have told you, I had sought consolation in the Internal Revenue Code: Sections 861-5 seemed a suitable subject for Kurama to know more about than I did. Finding, as I had hoped, that we were the only Art Lovers present at lunch, I turned the conversation to the question of income tax.
    'I suppose,' I said, 'if Gel Sadra is hoping to persuade your department that she is in Venice for business purposes, she might as well take the matter to its logical conclusion and claim relief under Section 862 of the Internal Revenue Code on the proportion of her earnings attributable to work done abroad.'
    'Yes,' he said, 'but she'd have to spend at least thirty days of the year working abroad.'*

*This does not seem to be the rule here in America. However, I waded through the IRC for two hours, I'm probably going to see the words "taxable year unless inapplicable under ___" in my sleep, and I still can't seem to find any good hard fast paragraph that fits the story. So, for purposes of this parody, the British Finance Act applies. Deal with it. Biiiiiiida.

    'Oh,' I said, 'I expect she could manage that. She'd have to remember, of course, that she could only count days devoted to the duties of her employment. If she spent a week overseas and rested on Sunday, only six days would count.'
    'No, Giullia,' he said, 'you're thinking of the bill. They amended it on its way through the House. If you're abroad for at least seven consecutive days which taken as a whole are substantially devoted to the duties of your employment, they all count, even if you take a day off.' This was said with such charming modesty and so little arrogance at finding me in error that I almost felt a qualm of conscience; but I remembered his treachery of the previous day -- my heart was hardened and I kept my course.
    'Nonsense,' I said firmly. 'Title 26 says that a qualifying day is a day substantially devoted to the performance of the duties of the employment. What you mean is, I suppose, that your Service has decided to make an extra-statutory concession, legislating by way of a press release. To the burden of penal taxation there is now added the tyranny of secret law-making -- as it is, when one cannot advise one's clients without ferreting through correspondence columns for proclamations of IRS policy.'
    My indignation almost caused me to forget the business at hand; but Kurama brought back my attention to it by repeating, rather crossly, that the day-off-abroad provision was not embodied by an organizational fiat but in Title 26 itself.
    'Watashi no Kurama,' I replied, 'I am prepared to bet you a bottle of wine that it isn't.'
    'By all means,' he said. 'But I'll have to wait for my wine until we get back to the US. We can't settle it without the Internal Revenue Code.'
    'We can settle it right away,' I said. 'I have the Internal Revenue Code in my room.'
    And thus it was that the beautiful Kurama returned with me across the bridge to the annex.
    It is a great advantage in an enterprise of this nature to know that one's room will have been cleaned and tidied. How often has some promising pursuit been brought to a standstill by my recalling the chaos and squalor of my bedroom? I looked with gratitude, therefore, at the little group of chambermaids, as pretty as a flock of angels in some Renaissance painting, who gather there to rest in the afternoon. They smiled at me, I thought, with an eye of complicity, as if knowing and approving of my purpose. We went up the staircase and came to my room.
    'Sit down,' I said, 'while I find my copy of the Internal Revenue Code.'
    There being nothing else to sit on -- the chair by the dressing table was occupied by a pile of clothes -- he sat down on the bed, on the edge nearest to the door. I was careful, having found my copy, to hand it to him from the other side of the bed, thus drawing him down from a perpendicular to a horizontal position -- lying, that is to say, across the bed, rather than sitting on the edge of it. I sat down beside him on the edge furthest from the door.
    'Show me,' I said, 'this mythical amendment.'
    It is hardly possible, when two people are sitting on the same bed and trying to read the same copy of the Internal Revenue Code, for all physical contact to be avoided. I, indeed, made no attempt to avoid it; but neither, it seemed to me, did Kurama. This gave me some encouragement -- one would not wish, as a woman of principle, to impose attentions actually distasteful.
    The advice of yourself and my Aunt Nabiki, excellent as both had proved to be, could take me, I felt, no further -- it was time to put complete reliance in that given by the dramatist Shakespeare. Leaning across Kurama's shoulders, I rested my hand on the area of the bed which lay on the further side of them. So that when, in due course, he looked up from the statute to say, with forgivable complacency, 'Here you are, Giullia -- sub-paragraph (b) of paragraph 8 of the Section,' he found himself, as it were, encircled.
    'Why, you are perfectly right,' I said, 'and I owe you a bottle of wine. But I hope you are too kind to insist on immediate payment.'
    'Oh, Giullia,' he said, opening his eyes very wide with reproach, 'how can you be so shameless?'
    'Aa, Kurama,' I answered, 'because you are so beautiful.' And met with no further resistance.
 

    'It just shows one,' said Hotohori sadly, 'how dangerous it is to gamble. Even when one knows one is right.'

    'Come on,' said Karasu. 'Going off with Giullia to her bedroom in the middle of the afternoon -- you can't tell me he didn't think she'd make a pass.'

    'Quite so,' said Akuma-chan. 'But the charge is not one of ravishment.'
 

    Delicacy precludes any more detailed account of the afternoon. This letter may be read in the presence of the virtuous and lovely Hotohori -- one would not wish to make him blush. That is to say, one would like very much to do so -- nothing could be more delightful. But I shall resist the temptation. I shall merely say that the dramatist Shakespeare, in imputing to the forthright and vigorous approach a merely limited success, was shown to have been less than candid.
 

    'Damn,' Karasu and Akuma-chan remarked in heartfelt unison.

    'Read doujinshi,' I suggested. 'Or Jude Deveraux.'
 

    Afterwards, as is the way with beautiful young men when they wish to show that in spite of the evidence they are not creatures of easy virtue, the lovely Kurama put on an expression of prim decorum, as one disapproving of all that has occurred and accepting no responsibility for it. Such a look, at such a time, inspires a particular tenderness; for after the horse has been persuaded to bolt, the careful locking of the stable door is extraordinarily endearing.
    'Giullia,' he said, 'you will keep quiet about this, won't you? I wouldn't like Hiei to hear about it from you or anyone else.'
    I assured him that he might count on my discretion. I had already established, as you know, that it was logically impossible for Hiei to be distressed by anything that might occur between Kurama and myself; but Hiei, being an artist, has perhaps not studied logic and is unaware of the impossibility.
    The great danger of such an episode is the sense which it induces of benevolent euphoria, the consequences of which are almost always disastrous. After washing and changing for dinner, I had made my way to the bar of the Cytherea with a  view towards consuming a refreshing Campari soda and writing you a full account of my success. There, however, I found the Major, looking dejected and reading The New York Times.
    My sympathies were aroused. The Major, after all, had no doubt come to Venice hoping, just like me, for a little innocent entertainment, but unlike me had failed to find it. I felt I should do what I could to raise his spirits. In a sense, it is true, it was his own fault: any hoped he might have had of success had been reduced, by the wearing of loud Bermuda shorts, from the small to the minuscule. On the other hand, I thought, it might be argued that it did him credit to wear a garment which so immediately revealed the frightfulness of his ape-like legs and horrendous taste in personal adornment: an unscrupulous man would have tried to keep them concealed until the point at which a well-bred woman would feel embarrassment at drawing back in revulsion.
    'Cheer up, Bob,' I said briskly. 'The news can't be that bad.'
    'Just looking at my little investments,' said the Major. 'I've saved a buck or two from time to time, and a guy I knew told me to buy some shares. Down again as usual. Got to expect it, I suppose, with this lot of Democrats running the show.'
 

    'The Major,' said Akuma-chan, 'must have been singularly unlucky in his choice of investments. The stock market is at its highest for five years.'

    'Perhaps he invested in Japanese banks,' suggested Hotohori.
 

    I pointed out that the decline in his investments would give him an excellent opportunity to establish a loss for capital gains tax purposes; but he seemed unwilling to perceive the advantages of this.  Having undertaken, however, the task of cheering him up, I persisted with it till dinner, sparing only a moment to add a postscript to my letter to you and consign it to the evening mail.
    My efforts to improve the Major's spirits were rewarded with such success that by the end of dinner he raised again the matter of the rug-cutting expedition. This put me in a dilemma. The only places I had seen which looked as if there might be dancing were nightclubs which looked to me formidably expensive; if I permitted the Major, in such an establishment, to bear the whole expense, it would be so enormous as to place me under obligations of an unmentionable nature. To avoid this, I should have to contribute equally; but to spend a large sum of money in order to shuffle round an over-crowded room in distasteful proximity to such a man -- well, there were limits to my benevolence.
    'Bob,' I said, 'you can't really want to spend the evening in a stuffy nightclub. I have noticed a most attractive little bar only a few minutes away, where we could sit out of doors and drink coffee and grappa -- don't you think that would be much more amusing?
    The bar to which I actually took the Major might not have been quite the bar to which I had intended to take him. Any route one follows in Venice is of necessity devious: alleyways which seem to lead in one direction, finding themselves interrupted by an unexpected canal, turn round and go somewhere entirely different; it is always possible -- but never certain -- that the bridge you are crossing is the same bridge you crossed five minutes ago. Still, whether it were the right bar or the wrong bar, it was a perfectly good place to drink grappa and coffee.
    Perceiving that we were close to the Teatro Fenice and somehow feeling that the responsibility of guide still rested on my shoulders, I was anxious to tell the Major something of the building's history and significance; but Hotohori-Love's guidebook was unhelpful.
    'You will observe,' I said, 'that the date over the door is 1792. We may confidently assume, therefore, that the Theater was the scene of very few of the comedies and musical entertainments for which Venice was celebrated in the eighteenth century. Beyond that I can tell you nothing: the guidebook refrains from any account of it.'
    'Never mind, m'dear,' said the Major. 'Can't always rely on guidebooks, can you?' His tone was somber, as if the remark had some deeper, possibly metaphysical significance. 'Still,' he added, 'not your fault, m'dear.'
    Among the many defects in the state of things which people have from time to time considered my fault -- but which you have always kindly explained were not my fault at all -- the inadequacy of guidebooks has not so far been included. Still, I answered that it was kind of him to say so.
    He continued to speak of his financial position, giving me to understand that in spite of the decline in his investments he had not done too badly for himself and was quite comfortably fixed. I made congratulatory comment.
    I would think it odd, he said, that he had never married. I did not in fact think it at all odd -- the statistical chances against any woman being willing to endure both the horrendousness of his attire and the tedium of his conversation seemed to me to be negligible. I did not express this view, but said sympathetically that the military life must be difficult to combine with the domestic.
    'That's it, m'dear,' said the Major. 'All right for a guy, but no life for the little woman. Ends in heartbreak -- seen it often. And since I've been in Civvy Street -- well, I've often thought I'd like to settle down. But it's no good if it's not the right woman.'
    I agreed that it was undoubtedly better to be married to no one than to someone uncongenial.
    'Well, m'dear,' said the Major. 'How about it?'
    I did my best to misunderstand. No use -- it was a proposal of marriage.
    If the survival of Mazoku in this world were to depend on an act of physical conjunction between the Major and myself, then I suppose -- while reserving the right, should the contingency actually arise, to consider the matter further -- I suppose that in that event I should somehow bring myself to do it. Once. Not twice. No, Akuma-chan, I am sorry, but even with the future of the species at stake, I really think not twice: you could not reasonably expect it of me. The institution of marriage, I have been led to believe, involves the occurrence of such acts on a regular and frequent basis. Marriage to the Major is a concept to make one's blood run cold.
    I had expected, at worst, some overture of a manifestly improper nature, such as might be rebuffed by adopting a Hotohori-like manner. For responding, however, to a proposal of marriage, the conduct of Hotohori-Love affords no useful precedent. The ungoverned merriment with which he habitually receives such an offer is all very well with a friend and colleague, but would be excessively wounding in reply to a comparative stranger. I made some disjointed remarks to the effect that it was kind of him to ask me but marriage was not a habit of mine.
    'Know I'm rushing my fences a bit, m'dear,' he said. 'Don't expect you to decide at once. But I'd better warn you, an old soldier doesn't give up easily when he's set his mind on something.'
    The stars continued to shine in the velvet sky; but my spirits were enveloped in a cloud of sudden gloom.
    The making of the proposal, albeit unaccepted, appeared in the Major's mind to entitle him, on wishing me goodnight, to embrace me, though a well-judged movement of the head enabled me to reduce the unpleasantness of the whole thing to a rasping of my cheek. The emery-board texture of his chin put me in mind by contrast of the alabaster smoothness of Kurama's. I remain very worried about Desdemona.
 

    'Why,' asked Hotohori, 'couldn't she just say "No"?'

    'They told her at school,' said Akuma-chan, 'that she must avoid hurting people's feelings.'

    'One sometimes feels,' said Hotohori, 'that Giullia took her education altogether too literally.'
 

    Today, therefore, my principal objective has been to avoid the Major. I should have liked to have another disagreement with Kurama about the Internal Revenue Code; but I think I can hope for no further success in that quarter. Seeing the lovely creature on the terrace this morning, I reminded him that I owed him a bottle of wine.
    'It is an obligation,' he answered with great coldness, 'that I shall be quite happy to forget.'
    From which I concluded that he is still set on proving himself not to be a young man of easy virtue and that it would accordingly take a full week of admiring his soul to prevail on him again.
    In case I have anything to add, I shall not mail this until tomorrow evening; though I do not suppose, since tomorrow is our last day in Venice, that anything will happen of sufficient interest to deserve reporting to you.
 

    'The remainder of the letter,' said Akuma-chan, 'is written, therefore, on the day of the murder. Would this be a convenient moment to adjourn for coffee?'

    'Oi,' he said as he brought it back to our table, 'you know this Desdemona chick that Giullia keeps on about? She married this guy Othello and he got the idea she was fooling around on the side. So he did her in.'

    'I think,' said Akuma-chan, 'that we are all reasonably familiar with the unfortunate events described in the tragedy of Othello.'

    'Well, I'm darn well familiar with them,' said Karasu, 'because Giullia took me to see it once. And I said afterwards I thought it was pretty silly, because the Othello guy's supposed to have done really well in the army and be a whiz at strategy and all that. And in that case, he wouldn't be the sort of dumbass who thought his wife was fooling around with someone else just because she lost her handkerchief. And Giullia didn't agree. Well, what she actually said was that I was a semi-educated flibbertigibbet whose powers of dramatic appreciation would be strained to the utmost by a Care Bears rerun. So I whacked her with my umbrella. And she tried to whack me with her purse. But she missed, of course -- you know what she's like.'

    Evidently lost in the tenderness of this revelation, Karasu fell silent. The sweep of black hair across his pale forehead gave him a romantic look, as of some poet or artist dying young in the nineteenth century. The events described had taken place, I suppose, before the bomb episode: after it Giullia would not, I think, have sought to return his whack.

    'Did this literary discussion,' asked Akuma-chan, 'at any stage return to the merely verbal?'

    'Oh, I'll say,' said Karasu. 'You see, the way Giullia saw it was that a guy who'd spent all his life in the army was just the sort of guy to get a bee in his bonnet about pure womanhood and so on, because he wouldn't get the chance to find out that women were more or less like anyone else and he'd start getting all idealistic about them. So as soon as he found out Desdemona wasn't perfect -- I mean, the first time she spilt coffee or dropped crumbs on the carpet -- he'd start feeling all disillusioned and thinking she'd betrayed his ideals. And after that, making him think she was fooling around with some other guy would be utter child's play.'

    'It is, I suppose,' said Hotohori, 'a not unconvincing view.'

    'You bet it's not unconvincing. Because when I started thinking about it I realized it was just what happened to my Uncle Strellbaugh. My Uncle Strellbaugh spent the best years of his life in the Army, serving America in distant outposts of our territories, and when he came out he was so far round the twist he was practically invisible. He's got this idea that when he went into the Army women were all pure and unattainable and when he came out they weren't. And instead of being pleased, he's up on his high horse about it.'

    'Watashi no Karasu,' said Akuma-chan, 'are the psychological difficulties of your relative in any way material to our present problem?'

    'Well, of course they are, or I wouldn't be telling you about them, would I? The point is that this Major of Giullia's is the same type as Othello and my Uncle Strellbaugh. And Giullia, poor kid, with a view to discouraging his advances, has been setting herself up as a contender in the pure womanhood stakes. As a result of which, the Major thinks she's the woman he's been looking for all these years and asks her to marry him.'

    'Ara,' said Akuma-chan.

    '"Ara" is right. And since Giullia doesn't want to hurt his feelings by saying no, she wouldn't marry him if he were the last man in the Assorted Worlds, he probably thinks she's more or less engaged to him.'

    'No one,' said Akuma-chan, 'could be as idiotic as that.'

    'You haven't met my Uncle Strellbaugh. Well, if that's how the Major sees things, and then he finds out about the IRS guy, with particular reference to last Wednesday afternoon, what's he going to do about it?'

    'I suppose,' said Hotohori, 'taking Othello as his model, that he would have murdered Giullia.'

    'Ah,' said Karasu, 'that just shows you're not as familiar with Othello as I am. If you'd been to the thing and sat all the way through it the way Giullia made me do, you'd know that before he offed Desdemona he took out a contract on this other guy he thought she'd been fooling around with.'

    'Karasu is reminding us,' said Akuma-chan, fearing that our grasp of the Ohio State idiom might not be sufficient to enable us to follow this explanation, 'that prior to strangling his wife Othello gave instructions to his subordinate for the murder of Michael Cassio, his supposed rival in her affections.'

    'Right,' said Karasu. 'So if Giullia wasn't around, the Major would have offed the guy from the IRS.'

    'I do not recall,' said Hotohori, 'that Othello completed his revenge by stealing Cassio's duffel bag. One feels that the dramatist would have thought it something of an anticlimax.'

    'Never mind about the duffel bag,' said Karasu. 'I expect it had incriminating evidence in it or something. Apart from that, the two cases are practically identical -- even the handkerchief business.'

    'I don't suppose,' said Akuma-chan, 'that the handkerchief which the Major gave Giullia was woven by a two-hundred-year-old sibyl from the silk spun by sacred silkworms. If it had been, the Major, being a dealer in antiques and objects of virtue, would hardly have given it to Giullia to stem a nosebleed. Shall I read the rest of her letter?'

    There was a sudden beeping sound.

    'My pager,' Hotohori apologized, drawing it from the recesses of his jacket. 'Excuse me while I call these people.'

    While he headed towards the telephones, I proceeded to subtly interrogate Karasu about one of the articles I had found interesting.

    'So, Karasu,' I said, 'I hear Sensui's people are claiming that they have some sort of ace in the hole to make sure that Ten'oh will accede to their demands, but won't say what it is. What do you know about it?'

    'Why should I know anything about it?' was his unhelpful response. 'It's not as if I was seriously involved with them or anything.'

    'Yes,' Akuma-chan said, "but you seem to have a positive gift for knowing everything that is going on."

    'Not this I don't.' He slouched, drinking more coffee (quite a trick, given his mask).'It's probably blackmail, though. Either that or a girl.'

    At that point Hotohori returned from his telephone call, in a state of mild agitation.

    'Watashi no Hotohori,' Akuma-chan said, 'is something the matter?'

    'Not particularly,' Hotohori demurred. 'Please, read the letter.'

Terrace of the Cytherea.
Friday morning.

    I have a rather curious, possibly even sinister, incident to relate to you. One might call it, perhaps, the Phenomenon of the Recurring Major. Before coming to it, however, I should mention, by way of prelude, an episode which occurred at breakfast time.
    I don't know if you have ever noticed, Akuma-chan, how after a few months of doing without the pleasures of the flesh and being more or less resigned to it -- of thinking, that is to say, that it would be nice if they were available but that as they are not one had better get on with construing the tax laws -- how, after such a period, an interruption of the celibate life tends to stimulate rather than allay the appetite. It is, I have found, the same with strawberries: during the winter I am not subject to any overpowering desire for them; but when I eat my first strawberry of the season and am reminded by direct experience of their warm yet uncloying sweetness and their yielding firmness betweenone's teeth, then I can by no means content myself with one, or two, or even three, but go on eating them with immediate greed until the bowl is empty or forcibly taken from me.
    Thus, when I awoke this morning, I began to reflect on the unlikelihood of any further success with Kurama, and on the prettiness of the waiter who brings my breakfast. The travel agents did say, after all, that service was included.
    The procedure for taking advantage of Italian waiters -- equally applicable, so far as I am aware, in other areas of the Mediterranean -- does not merit any long exposition. It consists chiefly of staying in bed until they bring one's breakfast and then smiling benevolently. Waiters, generally speaking, seem not to mind being taken advantage of. (This one, however, required a bit more convincing of my intention than most.)
    It is to be remembered, however, that they are an overworked and exploited profession, who have to spend much of their energies running to and fro carrying drinks and so on, so that the duration of the pleasure given is not always commensurate to the enthusiasm with which it is offered. If the coffee brought me by the pretty waiter had been cold by the time he left, I should have been willing, in the particular circumstances, to forgive him; but my forgiveness was not called for. Still, one must not be ungrateful -- strawberries are strawberries.
 

    'Ara,' I said. 'Recalling the description of the waiter, do you suppose...'

    'Suppose?' Hotohori said, looking particularly prim.

    'Well, Katsura's diary reveals that they did send "him" on a mission to a possible future, and "he" came back and reported that it had been accomplished by itself without any need of his assistance. I was wondering if this might be the possible future... hm. I'll have to check with the Minamino. Or perhaps -- yes, definitely my astronomy professor.'

    'Luriko,' Karasu said, 'are you actually suggesting that Giullia's pretty waiter was in the Hotel Cytherea in order to assassinate Kurama?'

    'Is there a way to conceal the part about being accomplished on its own?' Akuma-chan said. 'The case against Giullia would be much weakened if the presence of a notorious assassin in the vicinity were to be introduced.'

    'Akuma-chan, what you are suggesting is directly opposed to every tradition of Scholarship,' I said indignantly. 'Besides, it wouldn't work.'

    'What I don't see,' said Hotohori in puzzlement, 'is what Professor Hakubi would have to say on the subject of time travel. It does not seem to be an associated field of study.'

    'Atashi no Hotohori," I said indulgently, 'this is Washuu-sensei whom I am speaking of. She rules.'
 

    I come now to the curious and possibly sinister incident.
    For the reasons indicated above, it was rather later than usual -- though not so much later as I could have wished -- that I was ready to leave my room. On opening my door, however, I discovered that the hall contained the Major. Fortunately, he did not see me, being at that moment in the act of closing the door of his room. To avoid meeting him being at present one of my chief objects, I withdrew again to my room and opened a packet of Pocky. When I had consumed half of it, I thought it must be safe to leave.
    The Major was still in the hall and was still closing a door. Well, you will say, Akuma-chan, that there was nothing very startling about that -- he had forgotten something, you will say, had gone back to his room for it and was now leaving for a second time. I do not think, however, that your hypothesis is tenable; for it seemed to me that the door he was closing on this occasion was not that of his own room -- it was that of the adjoining room, which is occupied by Kurama and Jaganshi Hiei. Much perplexed, I withdrew again and ate the rest of the Pocky. Then, with the utmost caution, I looked out again into the hall.
    The Major was still in the hall. He was still closing a door. This time, if my observation by now was at all to be relied on, the door of his own room.
    Much shaken, I withdrew again and consumed in two gulps what remained of my duty-free brandy. The liquid which saw Napoleon across the Russian steppes did not fail me -- when next I opened my door, the hall was empty. Without further untoward incident, I made my way to the terrace.
    The incident I have described seemed to me extraordinarily disquieting. I could think of no sensible reason for the Major to spend some ten minutes rigidly posed in the attitude of one closing a door. The likely explanation, I thought, was that the suggestion of marrying him had had such traumatic effects on me as to induce a series of paranormal hallucinations: whenever I opened a door, I would imagine, unless previously fortified by brandy, that I saw the Major closing one. This, with brandy the price it is, would be an inconvenient affliction.
 

    'Hen ne,' said Akuma-chan. 'It looks as if the Major went into the room occupied by Kurama and Hiei and stayed there for about five minutes. After that, evidently, he went back to his own room and stayed there for another five minutes or so before finally going out. I wonder why.'

    'It is possible,' said Hotohori, 'that he visited the other room with the consent of the occupants. But the timing seems a little furtive -- it sounds, doesn't it, as if he had waited until everyone else in the annex could be expected to have left their rooms and gone about their lawful business -- all those, that is to say, who were not conducting themselves disgracefully with the domestic staff. Don't you think that it seems like a first attempt to steal whatever was in the duffel bag?'

    'No,' said Karasu, 'what I think it sounds like is Othello looking for Desdemona's handkerchief.'

    'You are suggesting,' said Akuma-chan, 'that the Major, entertaining some suspicion of Giullia's dealings with Kurama, was searching Kurama's room for some corroborative evidence?'

    Karasu nodded.
 

    My intention in going on to the terrace had been to write to you immediately of this disturbing experience. I was diverted from my purpose, however, by the discovery there of the lovely Kurama, leaning in a graceful attitude against the balcony which divides the terrace from the canal.
    This was not altogether a piece of good fortune, since he was looking more beautiful than ever. The sunlight catching his crimson hair, his white shirt a little open to show the smoothness of his neck, his translucent skin warmed by eight days in Venice -- if he reminded one before of something by Praxiteles, one thought now that the artist had cast his work in gold. The effect was to inspire in me a passion as ardent as I had felt when I first saw him on the airplane. It seemed to me, after all the trouble I had been to, that Wednesday afternoon had done me no good at all. Well, I suppose that is not strictly true -- it is always better to have had Wednesday afternoon than not to have had Wednesday afternoon; but I could find in myself none of that quiet contentment which one looks for as the consequence of an achieved desire.
    'You appear,' I said, 'at some risk of falling into the canal. Do at least avoid the danger of looking at your reflection in it. Remember Narcissus.'
    At this he smiled and looked pleased; but I was prevented from further compliment by the arrival on the terrace of Kaen, free, for once, of matrimonial surveillance.
    'I haven't seen you two in days,' she said, sounding reproachful.
    'The loss is ours,' I answered,' rather than the fault.'
    'Anyway,' she went on, 'I hope you're both going on the trip to Verona this afternoon. Ju-an didn't want to go, because he's already been to Verona. But I told Ju-an no way was I going to miss seeing Verona just because he'd been there on the weekend seeing a business acquaintance.' Her tone suggested no improvement in her opinion of such a person. 'And I don't figure we'll be seeing the same things he saw over the weekend. He won't have looked at anything historically relevant, not unless you count a ten-year-old bottle of rye. I mean, Ju-an is not exactly aesthetically aware. He is a fine person in many ways -- but when they dished up aesthetic awareness, I guess that Ju-an just wasn't holding his plate out. So I hope you're both coming this afternoon?'
    'No, I'm afraid not,' answered Kurama. 'Hiei's going. But Giullia and I both went on Tuesday.'
    She expressed her disappointment with flattering exaggeration, and asked if we had enjoyed Verona.
    'Very much,' said Kurama. 'Kuroko-san wasn't able to come with us, so Giullia acted as guide.'
    'Oh, I wish I'd been with you,' she said. 'I think Juri-chan would be a simply marvelous guide.'
    'Oh yes,' he said with great demureness, 'she is. Excellent. She takes one to all the places one ought to go. And sometimes,' he added, with even greater demureness, 'to places one ought not to go.'
    And thinking, no doubt, that this could not be improved on as an exit line, he excused himself from our company and left the terrace.
    I was still not able to write to you immediately of the Phenomenon of the Recurring Major, for Kaen persuaded me to go with her on a shopping expedition. It seemed to me that on the Rialto she had already acquired in wholesale quantities every form of merchandise that Venice offers to the discerning tourist; but she assured me that this was not the case.
    As a result of this diversion, it was not until midday that I was able to write and tell you of my disquieting experience. Even now, I have not escaped interruption. My secluded corner of the terrace has been taken over for the purposes of an assignation. I am left exposed to inquiry from all the tourists who pass to and fro in the lobby of the Cytherea and for some reason look on me as a likely source of information: three large German matrons, wearing identical straw hats, have asked me the way to the ladies'; an earnest young Englishman has required me to point out the house where Byron lived; a party of French schoolgirls have asked me which vaporetto will take them to the Lido. I have responded sympathetically, if not accurately, to all these inquiries. You will therefore forgive, I hope, the disjointedness of my narrative.
    Before going to lunch, I shall have to return to my room to get the guidebook to Verona -- having confessed to Kaen that it was the foundation of my success there, I felt obliged by courtesy to offer it to her for this afternoon's excursion. I have explained to her that it is Hotohori-Love's and she must be extremely careful of it.
    On leaving my room again, I shall be circumspect but not fearful. Writing to you has persuaded me to look on the bright side: I now realize that to see the Major when he isn't really there must at least be preferable to seeing him when he is really there. If, however, there is any repetition of the Phenomenon, I shall report it forthwith by way of postscript.

Terrace of the Cytherea.
Friday evening.
 
    Men, Akuma-chan, are very odd creatures -- I shall never understand them. There seems to be in their conduct no reason or consistency of purpose -- they are blown like feathers this way and that on every changing breeze of mood and fancy, so that it is quite impossible to predict, on any rational basis, what they will do next. Delightful, of course, in some ways, but confusing. Take, merely as an example, the enchanting Kurama, with whom I should have said this morning that there was not the slightest chance -- well, I will tell you everything, just as it happened.
    Having returned to my room to fetch the guidebook to Verona, I left it again without misadventure -- that is to say, without seeing the Major in fact or fantasy. I concluded with relief that the affliction had been temporary. Coming downstairs again, I found myself crossing the bridge back to the main part of the hotel only a few paces behind Kurama and Hiei. As seemed natural in the circumstances, I said 'hello' to them, patting Kurama on the shoulder -- a gesture, I think, of no greater intimacy than one Art Lover might in good fellowship show another.
    Kurama's reaction to this was most extraordinary. He turned round toward me very sharply and violently, almost as if preparing to defend himself against some physical attack, and said, in a tone of disproportionate ill-temper, 'For Inari's sake, Giullia, don't DO that.' This seemed an absurdly exaggerated response: he could hardly suppose that I would choose such a time and place for an improper advance; besides, his reaction was more appropriate to an attack on his life than his virtue.
 

    'Are,' said Hotohori. 'How very interesting. We can assume, I suppose, that the young man would not immediately have realized who it was who had touched him on the elbow?'

    'Certainly,' said Akuma-chan. 'And when a man seems at lunchtime to be in fear of his life and is found murdered before dinner, one is disposed to think that there must be some connection.'
 

    I apologized for having startled him.
    'Ch', you're jumpy,' said Hiei, evidently embarrassed by Kurama's abruptness.
    'It's just that we're flying tomorrow, and I get very nervous about airplanes,' Kurama said. 'So high up, and if the engine should stall we couldn't even autorotate down...'
    I noticed that Hiei himself was beginning to look slightly wild-eyed. So, apparently, did Kurama, for he changed the subject.
    ' I'm sorry, Giullia -- I didn't mean to snap at you.'
    Looking at him more closely, I was inclined to believe that this was indeed the reason for his curious behavior, rather than anything specifically to do with me. He was very pale and showed every sign of nervousness. I noticed with great distress that the perfection of his face was marred by a band-aid.
    'Kurama,' I cried, unable to conceal my anguish at this aesthetic catastrophe, 'what have you done to your face?'
    'My hand was shaking so much I cut myself shaving,' he said. 'Isn't it silly? Do I look very awful?'
    'No, no,' I said, 'no, of course not.'
    I filled the time it took us to reach the dining room with reassurance and compliment; but Kurama's nervousness seemed unabated -- I noticed that he ate no lunch and even spilt some of his wine.
 

    'Can't be the same Kurama,' Karasu and I remarked in unison.

    Hotohori and Akuma-chan gave the pair of us identical long-suffering looks.
 

Still, though concluding that there had been nothing personal in his remarks on the bridge, I would not have given a lira for my chances of further success with him.
    Kuroko-san arrived, as we were finishing lunch, to round up in time for a two o'clock departure those who were going to Verona -- that is to say, Hiei, Kaen, and Ju-an. Hiei hesitated, and seemed to be asking Kurama whether he minded being left alone; but eventually, patting him on the shoulder and suggesting that he should lie down for a while, he followed Kuroko-san out of the dining room. Kurama and I were the only Art Lovers remaining -- Sadra and the Major had been absent from lunch. Coming over to my table, Kurama suggested that we should have coffee together on the terrace.
    'Well,' I said as we drank our coffee, 'this is our last afternoon in Venice -- how are you planning to spend it?'
    'I'm still not feeling terribly well,' he answered. 'I think I'd better do as Hiei says -- take a siesta.'
    'What a pity,' I said, 'that you won't allow me to share it.' I entertained, as I have said, no hope of getting anywhere with this suggestion -- I made it rather as a matter of form, not wishing Kurama to think that the strip of adhesive bandage so detracted from his appearance that I could easily refrain from making an advance.
    And for all the world as if he knew no better than a young man brought up to serve breakfast instead of tax assessments, as if no wounding remarks had been made about obligations which he was happy to forget, as if my approach on the bridge had been a matter for satisfaction rather than alarm -- 'Why not?' he said.
    Men, Akuma-chan, are very odd.
    We returned across the bridge to the annex, smiled on again by the pretty chambermaids, and went, this time, to Kurama's room rather than mine.
    If he felt any modest reluctance to yield again so soon and with so little intervening commentary on his soul and intellect, it was, I am bound to say, most admirably dissimulated, for he devoted himself to the enterprise with great energy and apparent enthusiasm. To such an extent, indeed, that if I were the woman to call a truce with the IRS -- but never let it be said. Such exertion, in the heat of a Venetian afternoon, ends unhealthily in sleeping between damp sheets. Ah, Akuma-chan, when in our old age I complain of my rheumatics, remind me how pleasantly I earned them.
    When I woke up it was past ten o'clock. Kurama, lying next to me, still looked so peacefully asleep that tender-heartedness prevented me from waking him. Not wanting him to think, however, that I valued him so little as to leave entirely without ceremony, I scribbled my name and address and a few discreet words of affection on the inside cover of my copy of the Internal Revenue Code and left it, by way of souvenir, on the table beside the bed.
    After this, having washed and changed for dinner, I came down to the terrace to write to you of the oddness of men. I am back in my usual corner: the vine or similar shrub has thus protected me from any obligation to converse with Sadra or the Major, both of whom have returned to the annex in the past few hours -- they have been having a last rummage, I suppose, among the personal effects of the late Kisshouten-gimi.
    I shall have to stop soon for lack of light: the sun has just set and the only lamp on the terrace is designed more for romantic atmosphere than serious illumination.
    Besides, it seems to be time for dinner (which is late this last evening): the pretty chambermaids have scattered -- no doubt to turn down counterpanes and so forth -- and those of the Art Lovers who went to Verona have returned and are on their way back to the annex. I shall go to dinner and mail this on the way -- I am feeling, for some reason, extraordinarily hungry.
 

 'Poor Giullia,' said Akuma-chan. 'I do hope she got something to eat before people started arresting her.'
 

    'And in a minute or two,' said Akuma-chan, industriously helping the rest of us brush each other off, 'when we have got our breath back, we shall call down to the Paralegals' Room with some casual inquiry about our arrangements for this afternoon. And Tamahome, sounding reproachful, will say that he thought we were still at coffee, having not seen us return. And we will say good heavens, no, we've been back for ages.'

    'Will he,' I asked, 'believe you?'

    'His state of mind,' said Akuma-chan, 'may not be quite what a purist would refer to as belief. He will hardly venture, however, to suggest outright that we are lying. You'd better do it, Hotohori -- you do it best.'

    The choice of Hotohori was a happy one. Had it been Karasu or Akuma-chan whose inquiry about their afternoon engagements had been interrupted by an indignant interrogation as to their whereabouts for the past half-hour, during which Tamahome had been looking for them everywhere, either, no doubt, would have managed to sound surprised; but they would not, I think, have been able to mingle with their surprise the delicate suggestion which Hotohori achieved of superhuman patience taxed to its limit by Tamahome's folly in contriving to look for them at precisely those infrequent moments when they were absent from their rooms.

    'Well, Tamahome,' said Hotohori at last, with a forgiving sigh, 'I suppose you had some reason for looking for me?'

    'Young lady to see you, Hotohori-sama,' said Tamahome. 'She said it was personal.' His voice, clearly audible at the other end of the telephone line, was lugubrious. There are, no doubt, many reasons for which a young woman might call on a young man in a legal office and say that the matter was personal; there is only one which occurs to an attorney's paralegal. 'And of course, Hotohori-sama, had you told me there might be a young lady turning up wanting to see you, I'd have known how to deal with her. But you hadn't, sir, so I didn't.' If Hotohori, in addition to wasting in idle dalliance time which could have been more profitably have been devoted to his paperwork, had compounded his error by failing to inform his paralegal of the progress, regress and termination of the liaison, he could not expect Tamahome to protect him, as Tamahome would otherwise have done, from the distressing and scandalous scene which must now ensue.

    'I see,' said Hotohori. 'So how did you deal with her, Tamahome?'

    'I put her in the waiting room, Hotohori-sama, and said I'd try to find you. I said I'd seen you go to coffee but you were bound to be back soon, knowing how busy you were and with those papers promised for the Yuudaiji zaibatsu first thing tomorrow.'

    'Quite so,' said Hotohori. 'Did you happen to ask her name?'

    'No, Hotohori-sama. I didn't really want to do that, seeing that she said it was personal. I wouldn't want you to think that I was prying into your personal business, Hotohori-sama.'

    'Ah, how very discreet of you, Tamahome. Well, perhaps you could ask someone to show her up here.'

    Hotohori suggested that the rest of us might like to withdraw to Akuma-chan's room.

    'Not likely,' said Karasu. 'If you've been trifling with this chick's affections and now she's coming home to roost, we darn well want to know about it.'

    'I've been doing nothing of the kind,' said Hotohori. 'I haven't the faintest idea --'

    'Well, Tamahome thinks you have. And if she's going to throw a fit about it, you'll need us here for moral support.'

    'I am obliged to you,' said Hotohori, 'for your concern, but -- '

    'Lady to see you, heika,' said the temporary typist, opening the door to admit the visitor and so preempting further argument. Hotohori rose and extended his hand.

    'Hotohori kohtei-heika-sama?' asked the girl shyly, in accents which my mind identified as those of Nei. 'How do you do? Of course, you won't know who I am.'

    She was, as it happened, quite wrong about that. Her dark red hair, her graceful figure, the elegance of her mode of dress, so muted as to suggest a curiously seductive dowdiness -- all these were easily remembered; and it was only forty-eight hours since we had seen her at the airport. Not thinking it tactful to allude to that situation, we allowed Kaen to introduce herself.

    Hotohori no longer wished us to withdraw. He was inclined to think, as my readers may recall, that Kaen was a murderess; and her canvas-colored leather shoulder-bag looked large enough to contain a quite workmanlike pair of dressmaking scissors. Much as he might admire her elegance, he did not wish to be left alone with her -- he made haste to effect introductions.

    Kaen, on the other hand, though she acknowledged these very prettily, showing a charming deference to my instructorial status, had clearly envisaged a private interview. Taking the chair offered her, she looked round at us diffidently, as if uncertain how to explain her presence.

    'I'm sorry to intrude on you like this,' she said. 'I know you must all be very busy. But I was rather hoping, kohtei-heika-sama -- '

    'It may perhaps be of assistance,' said Hotohori, plainly anxious to forestall any express request for privacy, 'if I mention that we are all very old friends of Poison Giullia. With whom, I believe, you are also acquainted.'

    'Why, yes,' she said. 'How did you know?'

    'Giullia has written to us from Venice,' said Hotohori. 'She mentioned meeting you.'

    'Ah, naruhodo,' said Kaen. 'Well, if Giullia's told you about me, that makes it a whole lot easier. Because that's why I came to see you, kohtei-heika-sama -- because of Giullia. Something rather terrible has happened to her, and I didn't know whom to come to. I don't know if you've heard anything?' She looked round at us again, her eyes wide with anxious but discreet inquiry.

    'We understand,' said Akuma-chan, 'that a guest in the same hotel has been the victim of an act of violence, unfortunately fatal, and that the police have asked Giullia to remain in Venice until the matter is resolved.' She spoke with a certain coldness, due, I fancy, to a feeling that Kaen had somehow accepted responsibility for Giullia's welfare while they were in Venice: there was in her manner towards the Chinese girl something of the fond mother towards the negligent babysitter.

    Having evidently imagined Giullia friendless and forgotten, left indefinitely to languish without trial in a Venetian dungeon, Kaen seemed relieved to discover that anyone in the United States was aware of her difficulties. Lacking particulars of Giullia's next-of-kin, she had been uncertain who should be informed of them.

    'But then I remembered Giullia talking about you, kohtei-heika-sama, and I somehow felt that you and Giullia really had a very sincere and valid relationship, even if -- well, that's just what I felt.'

    'We are all,' said Hotohori, 'in our various ways, and for more or less comprehensible reasons, quite fond of Giullia, really.'

    'And I already had your address, because it was in the guidebook to Verona. Giullia lent me that on our last day in Venice. I hope you don't mind about that, kohtei-heika-sama -- she told me it was yours and to take great care of it.'

    She opened her canvas-colored shoulder-bag. Hotohori watched this with some anxiety; but she took from it nothing more dangerous than a slim volume covered in brown paper. 'I guess Giullia'd want me to give it back to you anyway,' she said.

    The tone to adopt, I felt, was one of sympathetic encouragement, as to undergraduates when they are explaining how the complications of their private lives have prevented them from writing an essay. It is my custom, on such occasions, to offer a stick or two of Pocky; but the only Pocky in the Nursery is that kept, together with the only sake in the Nursery, by Kiyoshi-dono for the refreshment of his more informal clients. Quite apart from any ethical objection to taking it without his permission, I felt that he might thoughtlessly have locked it away before leaving for Venice.

    'Kaen-chan,' I said -- the reverence she had shown for my instructorial status seemed to sanction the use of her personal name -- 'we know little or nothing of the circumstances leading to Juri-chan's detention. It would be most helpful if you could give us any details. Have you any idea, for example, who discovered the murder?'

    'Why, yes,' said Kaen. 'I guess I did.' Akuma-chan looked at her with deep reproach. 'I mean, I was with my husband and a guy called Jaganshi Hiei -- it was a friend of his who was murdered -- we found him in their room. I'm sorry, Koushi-sensei, I'm not telling this too well.'

    'Why don't you,' I said kindly, 'begin at the beginning?'

    'Maa,' said Kaen, 'I guess that means Friday afternoon. Ju-an -- that's my husband -- Ju-an and I went on a visit to Verona. In a group with a whole bunch of people, but we really didn't know anyone except Kuroko-san -- that was our courier -- and this fellow Jaganshi Hiei. He's a weaver -- quite well known, I think. We'd been in the same hotel all week, but we hadn't had a lot of interpersonal contact -- Hiei never seemed to be around much except at dinnertime. I'd got to know Kurama better -- that was his friend -- Kurama and Juri-chan and I all went to the Lido one day. Aa, Hiei sat next to us on the coach out to Verona and he was really fascinating -- he told us all about Venetian art and the Roman and Byzantine influence and everything. It was a wonderful experience, Koushi-sensei, having someone like that to explain it all -- we really appreciated it. Sore wa, I really appreciated it -- Ju-an isn't that much into visual creativity.'

    'But so far as you were concerned,' I said, 'the visit to Verona was one of unqualified pleasure?'

    'Oh yes,' said Kaen. 'It's a really enchanting city, Koushi-sensei.'

    'And then, I suppose, you all came back together on the bus?'

    'Yes -- we must have left Verona at eight and got back to Venice about a quarter past nine. Then we took the launch back to our hotel and it was starting into a spectacular sunset by the time we got there. We stood around for a minute or two after we arrived, talking to Kuroko-san and thanking her for everything she'd done for us, because she'd really been an excellent courier.'

    'Yes,' I said, hoping that no one else would appear in her narrative whose merits required tribute, 'and then?'

    'Maa, it had been pretty hot all day, so we all wanted to shower and change before dinner. We stopped at reception to collect our keys and Hiei's wasn't there, so he said that Kurama must still be in their room. So we all walked back together -- our rooms were right opposite each other, not in the main part of the hotel, we had to go over a little bridge to get to them -- and Hiei and I were still talking about things we'd seen in Verona. When we got there, Hiei went to open the door to his room and it was locked. Then he knocked and called out to Kurama to let him in, but there wasn't any answer.'

    'Was it the kind of door,' asked Akuma-chan, 'that could have been locked from the outside by someone who didn't have a key?'

    'Oh yes -- all the bedroom doors lock automatically -- I guess they figure it's better for security.'

    'I'm sorry,' said Akuma-chan. 'I shouldn't have interrupted you; do go on.'

    'Maa, Hiei seemed a bit concerned, because Kurama hadn't been feeling too good at lunchtime -- he was nervous about the plane flight and Hiei thought he might have passed out or something. I thought Hiei was overreacting, because I figured Kurama had just gone out or something and forgotten to leave the key at reception. Well, either way, I didn't figure it made too much sense just standing around in the hall and saying "Open Sesame." So I looked around and there was a maid just coming out of our room -- I guess she'd been turning the sheets down -- and I asked her if she could let the Signor Jaganshi into his room, because his friend seemed to have gone out and taken the key with him. And she said maybe his friend was still there but sleeping, since he was very tired perhaps. And she kind of giggled -- I don't know why.'

    'The Italians,' said Akuma-chan, 'have a very odd sense of humor.'

    'I said maybe he was, but he'd have to stop sleeping now, because the Signor Jaganshi wanted to shower before dinner. So she kind of giggled again and shrugged her shoulders and unlocked the door. Hiei started to go in and he turned the light on and he was still talking to us, ne, looking over his shoulder,  saying he wouldn't be long and he'd see us at dinner. Then he stopped and said "Masaka," and I said, "What's the matter, Hiei?" and he just said "Masaka" again. So I went in to see what was wrong. There wasn't too much light in the room and at first I thought Kurama was just sleeping. I kind of remember thinking "He doesn't look  too comfortable lying that way, I don't know how he can breathe with his face in the pillow like that." And then I saw the blood.'

    Respect for property cannot always be paramount. I remembered moreover that Karasu had acquired at an early age a fair expertise in the art of lock-picking -- I suppose it is one of the options in the Ohio State law syllabus.

    'Karasu,' I said, 'could you get the sake from Kiyoshi-dono's room?'

    'Absolutely,' said Karasu.

    It was not only Kaen who required some stimulus to fortitude. Akuma-chan, in particular, was discomfited by the removal from suspicion of Jaganshi Hiei -- Kiyoshi-dono's opinion that he was the person most likely to be accepted by the Italian police as an alternative to Giullia had carried weight with her. She began to look through the guidebook lying on Hotohori's desk.

    'According to this,' she said as Karasu returned successful and began to pour sake, 'Verona is 124 kilometers from Venice. That, I believe, is about 75 miles. It appears, moreover, that there is easy communication between the two cities by bus, train, and automobile. It sounds, therefore, as if it might be possible, if one arrived in Verona about three o'clock, to return to Venice and get back again in time to catch the tour bus at eight. We know, of course, Kaen, that you remember Jaganshi Hiei being on the tour bus. You have told us, however, that when you reached Verona you were deeply absorbed in the artistic and architectural glories of the city -- "enchanted," I think, was the word you used -- and in those circumstances you might perhaps hardly have noticed, indeed not noticed at all, whether he were still in your company?'

    'Not all the time,' said Kaen. 'But he dragged us in for ice cream at quarter of four and spent ten minutes choosing a combination of flavors; and then when we had a little snack right around five-fifty at the Cafe Dante, Ju-an and I shared a table with him.'

    'When you got back to the hotel,' I asked, 'you're sure Hiei could not have gone up to his room ahead of you and then come back to cross the bridge with you for the second time?'

    'Quite sure, Koushi-sensei,' said Kaen. 'It was the way I told you -- we were all together the whole time. If you've been hypothesizing that Hiei might have done it -- well, I'm sorry, but that's just totally nonviable in terms of the time-space-and-the-other factor.'

    We devoted ourselves with some despondency to our chilled sake -- its excellence was no more than a marginal consideration.

    Besides, excellent or not, sake makes me cough.

    'Reverting,' I said, 'if it is not too painful for you, Kaen, to the discovery of the murder -- there seem, from your description, to have been no signs of a struggle? Nothing to suggest that the unfortunate young man was stabbed in a quarrel or anything of that nature?'

    'No,' she said, 'I guess not. It didn't look like there'd been any kind of confrontation. It just looked like Kurama had been lying facedown, sleeping maybe, and if someone had come up quietly -- soo, Kurama wouldn't have known much about it.'

    'Have you any idea,' I asked, 'why the Venetian police suspect Juri-chan?'

    'That's what I don't understand, Koushi-sensei -- I thought she was right out of it. You see, after we found Kurama the way I told you, it was a pretty confused situation. I wanted Ju-an to go get the manager but Ju-an was very resistant to leaving me. And I wasn't about to leave Hiei alone in the state he was in -- he was in a really bad way, Koushi-sensei. He was just kneeling by the bed, with his arm round Kurama's shoulders and -- well, I guess he was crying. Ju-an said afterwards he didn't think youkai behaved that way. I pointed out to Ju-an that that was simply a nonempirical prejudgment and had no validity whatsoever -- but Ju-an swallows nonempirical prejudgments the way Ashitare swallows meat. So in the end it was the maid who went to get the manager.'

    It was clear, at any rate, why suspicion had so soon attached itself to Giullia: the chambermaid was one of those, no doubt, who had observed Giullia going into the annex with Kurama and later leaving without him. Assisting shortly afterwards at the discovery of the corpse, it would have been natural for her simply to inform the manager that the American gentleman in Room 6 had been murdered by the American lady in Room 8. 'Was there,' I asked, 'so far as you know, anyone else in the annex?'

    'Gel Sadra-sama and Major Linnaker -- they were in the same group we were -- they came out into the hall to see what was going on. I guess the maid had screamed a bit -- I guess I had, too.'

    'Did you happen to notice,' asked Hotohori, 'whether they had changed for dinner?'

    'Gel Sadra certainly had -- she was wearing a long skirt and fancy shoes, and too-bright makeup. It's hard to say with Major Linnaker -- he dressed pretty informally most of the time. Maa, when the police came they searched all the rooms in the annex but they didn't find anyone. I don't figure that means too much, though, because if someone wanted to get away it wouldn't have been too hard to slip out of the window into the canal. Maybe it wouldn't smell too good -- but I guess it's what I would have done if I'd just committed a murder and wanted to get away.'

    'And then?' I said.

    'Maa, the police made us all wait in the hall. Except Hiei -- Hiei wouldn't leave Kurama and they just let him stay. Then they got a stretcher and brought Kurama out with a sheet over him and took him down the stairs. They'd got the police motor launch right up next to the entrance, so they didn't need to take him across the bridge. There's only one light there and they stumbled a bit getting into the launch, but it was all right. And Hiei just went right along with them and they didn't stop him.'

    I thought of the heavy-shouldered weaver following the body of his friend; and easily imagined, for I too am familiar with the city, how little the single light and the fragments of its reflection in the black surface of the canal would suffice to penetrate the Venetian darkness.

    'Maa,' said Kaen, 'that was about it. They took statements from all of us through an interpreter, but it didn't take long and it was all pretty informal. Then we had dinner in a private room -- the hotel manager said we wouldn't feel like eating in the dining room after what had happened. It was pretty considerate of him -- additionally to which, maybe he thought having a guest murdered on the premises wasn't the best kind of publicity and he didn't want us talking to anyone else about it. But Juri-chan wasn't there and I just figured she wasn't involved in any way at all because she hadn't been in the annex. That was kind of simplistic maybe, because she could have been in the annex and come down again. But I just assumed she'd got back late and gone straight to the dining room.'

    'That seems,' said Hotohori, 'a very reasonable assumption.'

    'So I didn't see Juri-chan again that evening and I wasn't really concerned about her. I mean, I was concerned because I knew she'd be upset, but not for any other reason. Maa, next morning, when we were all supposed to be at the landing stage to take the launch to the airport, Juri-chan wasn't there. But even then I just figured she was having problems with her packing and maybe I'd better go and help her.' Prompted, if not cause, by the pitiful image of Giullia attempting to pack her suitcase unaided, two large and evenly matched tears began to roll down in perfect parallel on either side of Kaen's charming nose.

    'My dear girl,' said Hotohori, 'don't cry.'

    'Cheer up, babe,' said Karasu.

    'Have some more sake,' said Akuma-chan.

    'I'm sorry,' said Kaen. 'I guess it's just a biochemical reflex. Maa, that's when Kuroko-san told us Juri-chan wasn't coming, because the police still wanted to question her about the murder.'

    Her first inclination, it seemed, on receiving this intelligence, had been to remain in Venice until Giullia could be extracted from the clutches of the police. Ju-an, however, characteristically opposing this course of action, she had allowed herself, with a weakness which she now felt culpable, to be prevailed upon to return to Detroit: she appeared to be seriously considering whether she ought not to make good this default by going straight to Venice and persuading the Italian police of the absurdity of their actions. We comforted her with assurances of the steps being taken to protect Giullia's best interests; with promises to let her know of any further developments; and with three more cups of Kiyoshi-dono's chilled sake.

    'It's a bit much,' said Karasu when she had gone. 'Losing three suspects at once.'

    'I suppose,' said Hotohori, 'that she could be lying.'

    'No,' said Akuma-chan. 'She must be telling us the same thing she told the Italian police. And that must be the same thing Ju-an and Jaganshi Hiei told them. If it were merely a question of her evidence corroborating her husband's, one might not take much notice. But conspiracy between all three -- no, Hotohori, I really don't think it'll do.'

    Kiyoshi-dono called soon afterwards to tell us the bad news. We told him we knew. He told us it was worse.