She turned to leave, and Mr. Moore suddenly looked like he’d done a few seconds in the electrical chair: He cried “No!” desperately, secured his sheet around himself again, and bolted toward the bedroom door. “No, Lily, wait!”

“Call me at the theater tomorrow!” the woman answered from the front door. “I’d love to take this up again sometime!” And with that she was gone.

Mr. Moore stalked over to Miss Howard and glared at her what you might call hotly. “You, Sara Howard, have just destroyed what was well on its way to becoming one of the three best nights of my life!”

Miss Howard only smiled a bit. “I won’t ask what the other two were. No, really, I am sorry, John. But this situation is desperate.”

“It had better be.”

“It is, trust me. You haven’t heard the best part yet.”

“Oh. Haven’t I…?”

“Señora Linares came to me in the greatest secrecy, after normal business hours. In order to make sure that she wasn’t followed by anyone from the consulate, she took the Third Avenue El downtown. When she got off the train at Ninth Street, she walked along the platform toward the stairs down to the street-and happened to glance into the last car of the train.”

Miss Howard stopped for a moment, causing Mr. Moore to get a bit agitated. “Sara, you can dispense with all these dramatic pauses. They’re not going to improve my mood. What did she see?”

“She saw her child, John.”

Mr. Moore’s face screwed up. “You mean she thought she saw her child-wishful thinking, that kind of thing.”

“No, John. Her child. In the arms of a woman.” Miss Howard allowed herself one more smiling pause. “A white American woman.”

Mr. Moore digested that little tidbit with a kind of tormented but interested moan: the newshound was winning out over the libertine. He turned to me, still not looking much happier, but clearly resigned to his fate. “Stevie-as a means of atoning for this invasion, will you help me find my clothes? Then we’ll get down to Number 808 and, God willing, find out what this is all about. But so help me, Sara, derringer or no derringer, if this case is a bust you will regret the day we ever met!”