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"I am dreadfully sorry. I did not mean that the way it sounded." |
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"Is that all, Mr. Walcott?" |
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"Unless there is something further I can do for you, Mrs. Neville?" He fervently hoped she would refuse, and it showed. |
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"Thank you, no," Anna said. |
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Walcott looked at his watch. He had been at the hospital since six and was anxious to leave. His position, the position of his government, would be that the death was an American problem now. |
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John Morgan, standing close to the door to the waiting room with FBI agent Cantwell and the San Francisco police lieutenant, overheard the last exchange between Anna Neville and the consul. Judging from the look on the woman's face, she was not familiar with the ways of junior diplomats. Many people had heard of the diplomatic distaste for facing unpleasant facts, but very few had ever dealt intimately with that distaste. |
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Anna Neville looked pallid with latent shock and fatigue, but she was dry-eyed. Perhaps Pierre Grau was not the sort of man for whom one wept. |
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Agent Cantwell said sourly, "Why the hell did he have to come to my town to get himself greased?" |
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Anna Neville would get small comfort from the locals, Morgan thought. She had a good face, he decided, prettier and thinner now than the one in the photograph, and marked with a scar from eye to cheek. Her hair fell across it in a wave that partially obscured the scar, a bow to a vanity she probably would have denied. She was tired and in some pain. It showed in every, movement and gesture. How long had she been out of the hospital, Morgan wondered. Not long. |
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The Canadian offered Anna Neville a word or two more of empty condolence, then hurried out of the waiting area and down the long, prisonlike hall. |
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Morgan smoothed the lapel of his tweed jacket, hoping he |
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