She'd waited for me to betray myself by slipping below to talk to me. When he came back, she'd simply turned Nick loose. With his arm twisted out of its socket, Louis would have talked, all right. He would have told her everything she wanted to know, an all it had got him was a smashed face and a crack on the head. I couldn't help wondering if the brutal embellishments had been Nick's idea or Robin's. I wouldn't have laid bets either way. She was no longer the warm and lovely woman I'd held in my arms; but then, that woman had never really existed."

1962