The Water Nymph by Michele Jaffe Page A

chamber pot, Crispin was appalled to see, had escaped the plague of pinkness. Consulting his pocket watch, he saw that he had been there for less than an hour, even if it felt like five.
    Having given up on finding the other half of the list Tottle had been clutching when he died, Crispin decided to render it meaningless by destroying the cipher that had been used to encode it, which anyone would need to decode it. He himself had the only other copy, and without it the list was completely illegible. But so far Crispin’s searching had been in vain: he had been unable to find the cipher anywhere, and he did not know how much longer he could last in Tottle’s salmon-pink sanctuary. He had just decided to take the love letters he was sorting through with him and look at them in the soothing space of his dark-wood-and-burgundy library, when he heard the footsteps on the stairs.
    Noting that they did not stop at the floor below, where the offices were, but continued up toward the door to the pink paradise, he carefully replaced the letters in the top compartment of the (pink) desk and concealed himself among the (pink) drapes.
    Whoever was on the other side of the door was no professional. Not only had they crept up the stairs noisily enough to alert the dead, but they were now struggling with the simple lock on the door. He was half inclined to slide across the room and undo the lock for them, if only to ease the tension of waiting, but suddenly the door opened and the footsteps entered the room.
    Sophie was glad there was no one there to see her gaping. She had never been in a room like this before, had only vaguely imagined that such places existed. There could be no doubt that it was consecrated entirely to pleasure, from the triple-wide bed to the paintings of women—Satan’s knockers, what were they doing to that satyr in the one between the windows?—to the strange musky odor that permeated the air. She moved around the room slowly, taking in the proliferation of pink furnishings, astutely studying the paintings (could her leg go in that direction? she wondered, extending one of them out slightly as she studied a woman who was ecstatically making love with a swan) and feeling completely overwhelmed.
    And perhaps a bit ill, a sort of relapse of her feelings from the night before. She had just removed her riding cloak, having begun to feel a little warm, and started to wonder what could be causing the illness now, since the mustache was gone, when the pink curtains on her right stirred slightly and a figure emerged.
    “Don Alfonso. What a pleasant surprise,” Crispin said in a voice that left it unclear whether he meant it sincerely or as the saltiest sarcasm. “You have shaved.”
    Sophie should have known this would happen, she told herself, smoothing the skirt of her gown. She should have expected him to be there, she thought as she ensured her bodice was straight, making a mess of things, probably stealing things so that he would win their bet. That thought was immediately followed by another, and before she could stop herself she looked at him and said, “You bastard.”
    “Perhaps Miss Champion should take lessons from Don Alfonso about the basics of courtesy. Generally it is considered good form to wish someone good day before belittling their bloodlines.”
    “You drugged me,” Sophie replied, ignoring his etiquette pointers. “You put something in the wine last night and drugged me so that you could get here before me and take away important evidence.”
    Crispin raised his eyebrows. “Ingenious. I had not even realized it myself. With your powers of deduction, evidence would just be a hindrance.”
    “Then you admit it?”
    “Unfortunately, while I enjoy your company excessively, I did nothing to prolong your visit to my house last night. You yourself mentioned that your last meal had been days before, and I suspect that the wine you gulped like a sailor just went to your head.” Noting that she was