“The strangest thing happened at the market this morning,” she said, yanking off her yellow kid gloves as she walked into the library. “There was this man—” She broke off as Devlin looked up and she saw his face. The room was filled with shadows, for the day had grown overcast and he had no need to kindle a candle to light his work. Yet even in the gloom, she could sense the taut, hard set of his features, see the lethal gleam in the strange yellow luminosity of his eyes. “What is it?” she said. “Sinclair Oliphant is in London.” She was suddenly, acutely aware of the ticking of the mantel clock, of the lean strength of his fingers as he worked on the gun. He had told her some of the events of that blood-soaked Portuguese spring. She knew of Oliphant’s betrayal and the hideous carnage that flowed from it. But she’d always suspected that Devlin hadn’t told her everything. That he was holding back some crucial component of the events of that day.
