Creavey, Chapman, and I walked Geoffrey Dogen out to the car park in front of the Great Hall. “Did you and Gemma ever talk about her social life, the men she dated?”

“No, no. Not the kind of thing she’d bring up with me.”

“I assume you’ve heard the name William Dietrich, I mean, because of his position at Minuit.”

“Know him for two reasons, actually.” Dogen frowned. “I knew about his professional tiffs with Gemma and I’d heard bits and bobs about their relationship from other colleagues who disapproved. Something about his financial problems and a motor car that he wanted desperately. Gemma was always a soft touch for a friend who needed money. Material things meant very little to her. The girl came from nothing, made a lot of money, and was happy to give it away. Don’t know any more than that but I must say I wasn’t inclined to like this Dietrich fellow.”

We were struggling to make small talk by this time and Mike asked the doctor what Gemma had done for amusement or fun.

“Fun?” Dogen responded as though the word needed interpretation for him. “Not exactly the first thing that comes to mind about her. I mean, she enjoyed her friends, and she liked a good movie or a great read, but Gemma was quite intense about all her pursuits.”

“Well, did she ever talk about American baseball or similar events that she went to for diversion? Mets, Yankees, Knicks-?”

“Never heard her say the word baseball. Can’t imagine she went to any games of that sort. She hated team sports.”

Mike’s questions reminded me of the folder I had seen in her apartment when Mercer and I had visited there more than a week ago with the file tab labeledMET GAMES.

Dogen rambled on. “Gemma loved nature. Put her in a canoe or climbing a mountain or running for miles at a clip and she was content, but I’ve never known her to be interested in any kind of team activity, really. And your American baseball? Much too slow a game for her to sit through. No patience for that kind of nonsense at all.”

I’d have to make a note to check out the file folder and see what it had contained. Or decide whether this meeting had been a complete waste of time because Geoffrey Dogen simply didn’t know his ex all that well after the many years of separation.

Mike and I entered the reception area, having said good-bye to Dogen and the Commander. A bellman handed me the piece of paper and told me its message. I was to call Mr. Mercer back at Sarah Brenner’s office. Good news, the note read, and bad news.

Mike followed me up the stairs to our room. I dropped the case folder on the desk and asked the operator to place the call to my office.

Sarah’s secretary answered and put me through. “I’ll give you the good news first. They’ve had a break in the stabbing of the doctor at Columbia-Presbyterian. A snitch led them to a suspect last night and the squad’s got someone in custody right now. Tell Mike he was right. The guy saw the M.D. plates and flattened the tire himself, figuring he could at least steal drugs or a prescription pad from the victim. Then the doctor turned out to be a woman, so he tried to rape her, too. But this perp’s an uptown guy. Nothing at all to link him to Mid-Manhattan. Unfortunately, his victim is still likely to go out of the picture.

“And Maureen gets a message to me, via the Commissioner, once a day. Everything’s fine, so try and take it easy ‘til you get back home. Here’s Mercer with the bad news.”

I could hear him humming in the background, doing the intro like he was one of the Platters, before his deep bass voice broke into song as he took the receiver from Sarah. “Oh-oh, yes, he’s the great pre-e-tender-”

“Dammit. Will the real John DuPre stand up, please? What’s the story, Mercer?”

“Keep in mind the Tulane Medical School offices didn’t open until ten o’clock-that’s not much more than an hour ago. Just got a call back from them. The only John DuPre who holds a diploma from their distinguished institution graduated with honors in, let me see, the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and thirty-three. Nineteen thirty-three-that’s a wee bit before our boy was born, I would say. And I have to agree that my money’s with you on the idea that no self-respecting brother is walking around with the name Jefferson Davis anywhere in his pedigree.

“Now, when are you bringing m’man home to me?”

“We’re done. We’re on that noon flight tomorrow.”

“I’ll be picking you up at Kennedy so we can compare notes then. Right now Sarah’s typing me up a search warrant for DuPre’s office.

“I’m not gonna call over there first ‘cause I don’t want to alert any of his staff. But I’ll just show up and go back in to the receptionist saying I’ve got some more questions I forgot to ask about Gemma Dogen. Meanwhile, Sarah’s looking at the statutes on practicing medicine without a license. The warrant should cover all those diplomas on his wall, some of the patient records, and his appointment book. I’m thinking maybe we’ll catch a break and find something that connects him to the deadly candy or the attempt on Mo the other night.”

“Fingers crossed. Keep us posted.”

“Let me talk to Chapman. Can’t wait to tell him how much I miss him.”

WHILE MIKE SHOWERED AND DRESSED FOR the Cliveden Conference Banquet, I wrapped myself in the crested robe, stretched the telephone line over to my bed, put my feet up, and placed a call to Washington to try to find Joan Stafford. I gave the operator Jim Hageville’s number and was incredulous when it finally connected and I heard my friend’s voice.

“I hate to get melodramatic but where have you been in my hour of need?”

“I tried to call you back as soon as I got your message. Drew’s been phoning you over there, too, but-”

“I doubt he’ll ever try again. Mike answered the last time he called and he probably thinks I’m holed up with another man. Joanie, you have to help me with this one. Can you remember exactly when it was that Drew told you that he wanted to meet me?”

“Why are you mixing him up in this woman’s murder case, Alex? You’re just overreacting. You’ve got to get over what you went through with Jed and his kind of-”

“One has nothing to do with the other. It’s a bit freaky that Drew tells you he wants to meet me and a week later I find out that the doctor whose murder I’m working on was the surgeon holding the knife when Carla Renaud went out of the picture. How did the whole thing start? That’s what I want to know.”

There were a few seconds of silence as Joan stretched for an answer. I was thinking like an interrogator now rather than a friend and it hurt my case not to be able to eyeball her and gauge her demeanor as she tried to answer me.

“Joanie?”

“I’m not stalling. I’m looking in my date book. Remember the AIDS benefit at the Temple of Dendur in early March? Jim and I were just leaving when you arrived-you were standing right in front of that sarcophagus with the twenty-five-hundred-year-old mummy on loan from the British Museum -”

“Which one of us looked better?”

“Personally,I voted for the mummy, but that’s when Drew told Jim he knew who you were and wanted a chance to be introduced. We were on our way out so I told him to give us a call with some dates and I’d put it together at a dinner party.”

“And when did he call you? Got that in your little black book, too?”

A longer pause.

“He didn’t call you until after he saw the newspaper articles about my assignment to Gemma Dogen’s case? Right? Like a day or two before the dinner party that you’d already set up. And you just added an extra chair.”

“What’s the big deal? I mean, I certainly didn’t know anything about this, Alex. But I can’t blame the man for being curious about the doctor who had such a profound effect on his personal life. I’ve talked to him plenty since then and he’s really crazy about you.”