“Since I was a little baby. Someone left me on the doorstep of a foundling home.”

He noticed that while she was replying to his questions in an even tone of voice, she was staring at her food with a good deal of concentration and her blush had become more pronounced. Was she embarrassed at having to admit her probable lack of legitimacy? he wondered. Surely she had grown accustomed to it in—how old was she?—twenty-four years. Nonsense, of course she had.

“But on your original application form, Miss Gresham, you gave Thomas and Mary Gresham as the names of your parents.”

Wednesday had stopped eating and was playing with her water glass. “They were an old couple who adopted me,” she said in a very low voice. “They died when I was fifteen. I have no living relatives.”

“That you know of,” he pointed out, raising a cautionary finger.

Much to Fabian’s surprise she chuckled. It was a very odd chuckle and made him feel extremely uncomfortable. “That’s right, Mr. Balik. I have no living relatives—that I know of.” She looked over his shoulder and chuckled again. “That I know of,” she repeated softly to herself.

Fabian felt irritably that the interview was somehow getting away from him. He raised his voice slightly. “Then who is Dr. Morris Lorington?”

She was attentive again. In fact, wary was more like it. “Dr. Morris Lorington?”

“Yes, the man you said should be notified in case of emergency. In case anything happened to you while you were working for us.”

She looked very wary now. Her eves were narrowed, she was watching him very closely; her breathing was a bit faster, too. “Dr. Lorington is an old friend. He—he was the doctor at the orphanage. After the Greshams adopted me, I kept going to him whenever—” Her voice trailed off.

“Whenever you needed medical attention?” Fabian suggested.

“Ye-es,” she said, brightening, as if he had come up with an entirely novel reason for consulting a physician. “I saw him whenever I needed medical attention.”