"I don't mean to pry." The waiter was returning, bearing two plates. She leaned back while he deftly slid her entree in front of her. When he'd gone, she looked back at Burgeson. "But I'd be crazy not to be curious. Months ago, when I said I didn't care what your connections were... I didn't expect things to go this way."
He shrugged, then picked up his knife and fork. "Neither did I," he said shortly. "You are curious as to the nature of what you've gotten yourself into?"
She took a sip of wine, then began to methodically slice into the overcooked lamb chops on her plate. "This probably isn't the right place for this conversation."
"I'm glad you agree."
He wasn't making this easy. "So. Tomorrow... train back home? Then what?"
"It'll be a flying visit. Overnight, perhaps." He shoveled a potato onto his fork, holding it in place with a fatty piece of mutton: "I need to pick up my post, make arrangements for the shop, and notify the Polis." His cheek twitched. "I've reserved a suite on the night mail express, leaving tomorrow evening. It joins up with the Northern Continental at Dunedin, we won't have to change carriages."
"A suite?" She raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that expensive?"
Erasmus paused, another forkful of food halfway to his mouth: "Of course it is! But the extra expense, on top of a transcontinental ticket, is minor." He grimaced. "You expect travel to be cheaper than it is. It can be-if you don't mind sleeping on a blanket roll with the steerage for a week."
"Yes, but..." Miriam paused for long enough to eat some more food: "I'm sorry. So we're going straight through Dunedin and stopping in Fort Petrograd? How many days away?"
"We'll stop halfway for a few hours. The Northern Continental runs from Florida up to New London, cuts northwest to Dunedin, stops to take on extra carriages, nonstop to New Glasgow where it stops to split up, then down the coast to Fort Petrograd. We should arrive in just under four days. If we were really going the long way, we could change onto the Southern Continental at Western Station, keep going south to Mexico City, then cross the Isthmus of Panama and keep going all the way to Land's End on the Cape. But that's a horrendous journey, seven thousand miles or more, and the lines aren't fast-it takes nearly three weeks."
"Hang on. The Cape-you mean, you have trains that run all the way to the bottom of South America?"
"Of course. Don't your people, where you come from?" They ate in silence for a few minutes. "I'd better write that letter to Roger right now and mail it this evening."
"That would be prudent." Burgeson lowered his knife and fork, having swept his plate clean. "You'll probably want to go through my bookcases before we embark, too-it's going to be a long ride."
After the final cup of coffee, Burgeson sighed. "Let us go upstairs," he suggested.
"Okay- yes." Miriam managed to stand up. She was, she realized, exhausted, even though the night was still young. "I'm tired."
"Really?" Erasmus led the way to the elevator. "Maybe you should avail yourself of the bathroom, then catch an early night. I have some business to attend to in town. I promise to let myself in quietly."
He slid the elevator gate open and as she stepped inside she noticed the heavily built doorman just inside the entrance. "If it's safe, that works for me."
"Why would it be unsafe? To a hotel like this, any whiff of insecurity for the guests is pure poison." "Good."
Back in the room, Miriam jotted down a quick note to her sometime chief research assistant, using hotel stationery.
"Can you get this posted tonight?" she asked Erasmus. "I'm going to have that bath now..."
The bathroom turned out to be down the corridor from the bedroom, the bath a contraption of cold porcelain fed by gleaming copper pipework. There was, however, hot water in unlimited quantities-something that Miriam had missed for so long that its availability came as an almost incomprehensible luxury.
