we'd been. People keep telling me: it was an accident.That's all. Just an accident.'

'But you don't believe it?'

Valentin had appeared with a glass of milk. He set itdown on the table in front of Harry. As he made to leave,she said: 'Valentin. The letter?'

He looked at her strangely, almost as though she'dsaid something obscene.

'The letter,' she repeated.

He exited.

'You were saying -'

She frowned. 'What?'

'About it being an accident.'

'Oh yes. I lived with Swann seven and a half years,and I got to understand him as well as anybody evercould. I learned to sense when he wanted me around,and when he didn't. When he didn't, I'd take myself offsomewhere and let him have his privacy. Genius needsprivacy. And he was a genius, you know. The greatestillusionist since Houdini.'

'Is that so?'

'I'd think sometimes - it was a kind of miracle that helet me into his life ...'

Harry wanted to say Swann would have been mad notto have done so, but the comment was inappropriate.She didn't want blandishments; didn't need them.Didn't need anything, perhaps, but her husband aliveagain.

'Now I think I didn't know him at all,' she went on,'didn't understand him. I think maybe it was anothertrick. Another part of his magic.'

'I called him a magician a while back,' Harry said.'You corrected me.'

'So I did,' she said, conceding his point with anapologetic look. 'Forgive me. That was Swann talking.He hated to be called a magician. He said that was a wordthat had to be kept for miracle-workers.'

'And he was no miracle-worker?'

'He used to call himself the Great Pretender,' she said.The thought made her smile.

Valentin had re-appeared, his lugubrious features rifewith suspicion. He carried an envelope, which he clearlyhad no desire to give up. Dorothea had to cross thecarpet and take it from his hands.