Once outside, Gudrun immediately extracted a cigarette and lighter from her purse, lit up, and inhaled with undisguised relief. Then she looked up at the night sky. The chilled air made Benjamin pull his jacket closed.
"Amazing out here, isn't it?" she said. "Away from the city lights. They're so much… clearer. But then, so many things are."
He looked upward, if for no other reason than to prevent himself from staring at her face shining in the starlight-and noticing the way that same starlight emphasized the contours of her breasts above the low-cut neckline of her dress.
She threw the cigarette to the stone pathway, ground it out beneath the toe of a black high-heeled shoe, looked back to him. Smiled that radiant, rapacious smile.
"We never really got a chance to have our chat at dinner, did we. Look, I have some very nice brandy in my room-what say I bring it to yours, mine is an absolute mess, and I'll answer any… inquiries you might have had for me."
When he hesitated, she placed her hand on his arm, and said, "I'll be nice, I promise."
"Enjoying the night air?" said Edward Stoltz loudly, approaching them from the dining hall.
Gudrun said, "Saying good night. So I will. Good night, Edward." She turned to Benjamin. "Mr. Wainwright." And, her high heels clicking on the cobblestones, she walked off down the path and into the manse.
"A remarkable woman," said Stoltz. "Not my type, of course."
Benjamin nodded, said nothing. He was about to say good night himself when he remembered their earlier conversation that had been cut off.
"Dr. Stoltz, you mentioned there was some sort of… scandal after they discovered this diary?"
"Scandal with a capital S," said Stoltz, smiling wickedly. "Seems the painter of that mural we were discussing, Cecil Bayne? Seems he was having an affair with one of the fellows here. A Warren Ginsburg. An historian, like you, I believe."
At first Benjamin was so surprised to hear that Stoltz knew he was an historian that the name of Bayne's lover didn't strike him. Then he realized it sounded familiar.
" Warren Ginsburg," repeated Benjamin.
Now Stoltz's eyes went wide in surprise. "You know of him?"
"Well… as you say, he was an historian, so…" He let his voice trail off, then added, "But an affair, even a homosexual one… that was a scandal?"
"Oh, no," said Stoltz. "They weren't that provincial, even back then and even out here."
"Then why-?"
"It was the termination of the affair." Stoltz smirked as though he'd made a particularly clever joke. "Messy. One of those murder-suicides that's supposed to happen in dens of iniquity like Hollywood, not staid Massachusetts."
"So they both…"
"Died, yes. Bayne murdered and Ginsburg…" Stoltz held a finger to his temple, pulled an imaginary trigger. "You see? Needless to say, Bayne never completed the mural. Pity."
Benjamin nodded. He shivered as if cold. "Well, I think I'll say good night too, then." He began to leave, then turned back as if he'd remembered something. "And that diary you mentioned, is it still here?"
"No, no, it was donated long ago," said Stoltz, waving his hand, apparently now bored with the whole story. "To the Morris Estate."
As in 'the Library of Seymour Morris'? Benjamin wondered. But he dared not ask.
"Well, good night then. Pleasure meeting you," Benjamin said.
He turned and started off down the path to the manse-not certain whether he wanted Gudrun to keep their rendezvous in his room or not. He had a lot to tell Wolfe, and wasn't sure he could wait until morning.