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how long does one sorrow over a lost love after one has found another?”
    “It might help,” said Henry, “if Mr. Stellar could tell us the passage in question.”
    “Yes,” said Gonzalo, “call your wife and have her read it to Henry.”
    “I don't have to,” said Stellar, who had only with difficulty withdrawn the wounded stare he had been directing at Avalon. “I've read the damn thing again a couple of weeks ago—about the fifth time—and I have it reasonably fresh in my mind. What it amounts to is this: we had been served the roast at a kind of snail's pace and I was waiting for others to be served before beginning. A few weren't quite that formal and were eating. Finally I broke down and salted it and was going to eat when I noticed that Mrs. Bercovich, who was on my right, had still not been served. I looked surprised and she said she had a special request and it was delayed in getting to her and I offered her my plate and she said, 'No, thank you, it's been salted.' I told that passage, without names, just so I could get across my funny line, which I remember exactly. It went, 'She was the only one at the table who objected to the salt; the rest of us objected to the meat. In fact, several of us scraped off the salt, then ate it in a marked manner.'“
    No one laughed at the funny line. Trumbull went to the trouble of simulating nausea.
    Halsted said, “I certainly don't see any great sentimental value in that.”
    “I should say not,” said Stellar, “and that's every last mention of her, without name or description, and none of Joel himself.”
    Henry said, “Yet Mr. Rubin said that the first Mrs. Bercovich died of a heart attack, which is rather a catch-all reference to circulatory disorders in general. She may well have had seriously high blood pressure and have been put on a low-salt diet.”
    “Which is why she refused Stellar's salted meat,” said Gonzalo. “Right!”
    “And why she was waiting for a special dish,” said Henry. “And this is something to which Mr. Bercovich desperately wants no attention drawn. Mr. Rubin said Mrs. Bercovich had done her best to hide her condition. Perhaps few people knew she was on a low-salt diet.”
    Stellar said, “Why should Joel care if they know?”
    “I must introduce another perhaps, sir. Perhaps Mr. Bercovich, weary of waiting and, perhaps, already attracted by the woman who is now his second wife, took advantage of the situation. He may have salted her food surreptitiously, or, if she used salt substitute, he may have replaced it, at least in part, with ordinary salt—”
    “And killed her, you mean?” interrupted Avalon.
    Henry shook his head. “Who can tell? She might have died at the same moment anyway. He, however, may feel he contributed to the death and may now be in panic lest anyone find out. The mere mention of a woman refusing salt at that table may, in his eyes, be a shrieking out of his guilt—”
    Stellar said, “But I didn't name her, Henry. There's no way of telling who she was. And even if somehow one were to find out that it was she, how could anyone suspect anything out of the way?”
    “You are perfectly right, Mr. Stellar,” said Henry. “The only reason we have come to suspect Mr. Bercovich now is because of his peculiar behavior with respect to the article and not to anything in the article itself. —But, you know, we have biblical authority to the effect that the wicked flee when no man pursueth.”
    Stellar paused a moment in thought, then said, “All this may be, but it's not getting my article published.” He pulled out a black address book, turned to the Bs, then looked at his watch. “I've called him at his home before and it isn't ten yet”
    Avalon raised his hand in an impressive stop sign. “One moment, Mr. Stellar. I trust you are not going to tell your editor about what we've said here. It is all strictly confidential in the first place, and it would be slander in the second. You would not be able