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"Coestured hiht of the hall Her voice was low and very sweet, without seductiveness or artifice of any kind As he followed her, Asher was acutely conscious of the thud-ding of his own heart He wondered if she was, too

The salon was large, perfectly orderly, but had a chilled air of long neglect One dim oil lamp on the corner of a curlicued Baroque s nearest it-graceful Hepplewhite chairs, the curve of a bow-front cabinet, and the claret-red gleaany in a thick archaic style Asher wondered ould dust the place and brickbat that dingy front step, now that Danny King was dead

Mrs Farren said, "I&039;ve heard of you, Dr Asher" As in Ysidro&039;s, there was neither co be-fore her in the sleas, and the fact that, except when she spoke, the creaies for intruding," he said, with a slight bow "If you&039;ve heard ofinformation-and if you know Don Siyour servant?"

"Yes" She nodded once Unlike Ysidro, though her voice was abso-lutely neutral, there was a world of brightness, of watchfulness, of feel-ing in her large, golden-brown eyes "He was my husband&039;s," she added after a hed with relief-he&039;d been afraid for a moment that all vampires were as utterly uncoer, they used to call the our last" She hunted for the word for a ether, and suddenly see of the world, I suppose you could say We had a nuant eccentricities as barring a whole wing of the house and leading an ut-terly nocturnal existence were uessed"

She stood with her back to the htly before her slender waist, in an attitude regal and slightly archaic, like a stiffly painted Restoration portrait In life, Asher guessed, she had been a little plump, but that was all smoothed away now, like any trace of archaisoith its flared tulip skirt was mod-ern, but the baroque pearls she wore in her ears could only have been so extravagantly set in the days of the last of the Stuart kings

When she moved, it had the same unexpectedness Ysidro&039;sher at his side But she only said, "I suppose now that he&039;s gone, it&039;s I who must take your coat"

"Did you make him a vampire?"

"No" She hesitated aulster, hat, and scarf on a nearby sideboard, her eyesfrom his, then back "Grippen did that, at our request-and Danny&039;s Danny was very de-voted to Charles-my husband"

"Could you have?"

"Is that question pertinent?" she inquired levelly "Or just curiosity?"

"The answer is that ould not have," a voice spoke fro heard no creak froht The loo-thinnish, ht, and with an indefinable air about hie, as if one would expect to see cob-webs caught in his short-cropped light-brown hair "Not without Lio-nel&039;s permission"

"Lionel?"

"Grippen" The vampire shook his head, as if the naue There was a weariness to his e that had not yet reached his face Glancing swiftly back at Mrs Farren, Asher saw her eyes on this newcomer filled with concern

"He never would have stood for it," the vampire explained "He would have driven poor Danny out of every hole and corner within a year He&039;s very jealous that way" He held out one thin hand, said, "I&039;m Ernchester," in a voice that echoed the resonance of that vanished title

Asher, who had gained a certain amount of familiarity with the Earls of Ernchester frouessed: "Lord Charles Farren, third Earl of Ernchester?"

A faint smile brushed that white, square-jawed face, and for a mo-ment there was a flicker of animation in the dead eyes He inclined his head "I fear I don&039;t look much like the portrait," he said Any nuloomy salon walls, too obscured with tinizable But Asher reasoned that, since the third Earl of Ernchester had died in 1682, and any portrait would have been two-thirds devoted to an elabo-rate periwig, it scarcely mattered And, in fact, the third Earl of Ernchester had not died Asher frowned, trying to recall the name of the Countess, and with the curious perspicacity of vampires Mrs Farren said, "Anthea" She stepped over beside her husband and guided him to a chair near the cold hearth; in her brown eyes was still that wariness, that concern when she looked at hiarded Asher Asher saw the way Ernchester moved when he took his seat- with the same economy of movement he had seen in Ysidro, and indeed in Lady Anthea, but without life

"Did Danny sleep here?" he asked, and it was Anthea who replied, "Only very occasionally" She straightened up and walked back to the hearth; it was a relief to Asher not to have to fight to see them move, as he did with Ysidro

"And I take it it wasn&039;t here that you found his body?" From the co away, resting his brow on his hand in a gesture that hid his face It caer for that, too-a protective anger-in Anthea Barren&039;s brown eyes

"If it had been," she replied coolly, "you may be sure that the killer would have dispatched the both of us as well"

He bit his lip Then, answering her anger and not her words, "I&039; fraer left her eyes She, too, answered not his words "It was foolish of you to co, but, believe round that it is perilous for a livingas he has a pistol toas someone I love will suffer for it if I don&039;t find this killer-he&039;s not going to be able to have it both ways I want to be shut of

this business quickly-before he finds where I&039;ve hidden away the woe to him, before the killer realizes he has a day hunter on his trail, learns who I aet any deeper entangled into the side of this affair that isn&039;t my business But I can&039;t do that unless I have ive"

She considered hi ht of her dark hair "He is-a very old vampire," she said after a time "He is cautious, like an old snake in a hole; he errs on the side of caution, maybe Maybe it&039;s because he doesn&039;t really care "

It was odd to hear her speak of Ysidro as "old," for the Spaniard had the queerly graceful air of a young ht Asher, with his oddly dead lanced back at the chair where the Earl had sat, but the vaer there Asher could not recall just when he had vanished It was early evening, he remembered, and neither of his hosts had fed But so to this quiet and beautiful wo before he was born, he could not fear her

He wondered if that were because shesolamour of the vampire on him, as Ysidro had tried to do on the train Ysidro&039;s words about "other vahts

After a long pause, Anthea went on, "I&039;m not sure whether he or Grippen is the elder-they were both made about the same time, by the same master Rhys the White, that was A minstrel, as master vampire of London-oh, years, years