At half past eight the corridor came alive. Doors opening, voices, footsteps going toward the diner for the second seating. She heard Howard Vance's voice, anxious and quick, and a woman's laugh from one of the sections. Then the sounds thinned, and the car settled again into its traveling quiet, and Martha went back to her book.
She was still reading at a quarter to nine when the knocking started.
It was not the porter's knock — two soft raps, a pause. This was a fist on the drawing-room door, and Howard Vance's voice, pitched high.
"Aunt Eleanor? Aunt Eleanor, are you —"
The drawing-room door opened. Mrs. Vance's voice, sharp with something Martha had never heard in it before: alarm, stripped of all its polish.
"It's gone. The case is gone. Howard, the jewel case —"
Martha put her book down and opened her roomette door a crack. The corridor of Car Seven was filling. Dot Marchetti stood in her robe at the section curtains, Paul behind her. The Hendersons had come out of their roomette, Arthur in his shirtsleeves, Grace with her hair in a net. Avery was already there, at the drawing-room door, his face carefully empty.
"The leather case," Mrs. Vance was saying. "It was on the shelf above the washstand. I put it there myself before dinner — before the first seating. Howard, you saw it."
"I — yes, Aunt. It was there."
""And now it is gone, and my brooch was in it, and the pearls, and everything your uncle ever gave me."
Martha could hear Howard moving about inside the drawing room — a drawer sliding, the snap of a suitcase latch. "It has to be here," he kept saying, as if repetition could make it true. "Aunt Eleanor, think. Did you take it to dinner?" "I never take it to dinner. It stays on the shelf. It has always stayed on the shelf." Avery's voice came low and steady through the door: "We'll find it, ma'am. The conductor's coming. Nobody leaves this car till it's found." It was the right thing to say, and Martha heard the steadiness in it, and thought: that man is holding this whole corridor together with his voice."
The conductor arrived within minutes, moving down the corridor like weather. Pruett, Martha remembered from the Chicago platform, and behind him a man she had not seen before — forty-four, plain-faced, in a business suit that had ridden two days without complaint.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Pruett said, "I need everyone in this car to stay where you are. This is Mr. Dillard. He's a special agent of the Continental Pacific, riding this train on railroad business. Mrs. Vance's property has been taken from the drawing room, and Mr. Dillard and I are going to get to the bottom of it."
A special agent. The words changed the air in the corridor the way a cloud changes the light. This was no longer a lost item; it was a case. Martha felt her throat go dry. She told herself there was nothing to fear, and found that telling herself did no good at all, and folded her hands tighter in the sleeves of her robe.
A ripple went through the corridor. A special agent. Martha looked at the plain-faced man again and saw, now that she knew, the way his eyes moved — not at faces, but at hands, at doors, at the spaces between people.
"When was the case last seen?" Dillard asked. His voice was quiet and methodical, and everyone leaned in to hear it.
"Before the first seating," Howard said. "Six o'clock. Aunt Eleanor put it on the shelf, and we went to dinner — the second seating, we had the second — and when we came back just now it was gone."
"Who was in this car during the second seating?" Pruett asked.
Avery spoke up, his voice level. "Most everybody went to dinner, sir. First seating or second. The car's been empty most of the evening."
"Most everybody," Pruett repeated. "Who wasn't?"
Pruett turned to the Hendersons. "And you folks?" "Second seating," Arthur said promptly. "We were in the diner from eight till half past. The steward can tell you — we had the pie." A thin smile from Grace. Pruett turned to the Marchettis. Dot's voice came small from behind the curtains. "We — we didn't go to dinner. We had sandwiches. We were here the whole time." Paul added, "We didn't hear anything, Conductor. The curtains were closed." Pruett's gaze moved down the corridor to the well-dressed man from the diner, who stood in his roomette doorway with his arms folded, calm and cooperative. "Second seating," he said. "Dined alone. The steward will remember me." Dillard made another note in his little book.