"It would be too much," she said practically.

"We don't need to invite scrutiny." A rich, chestnut-colored wig covered Mary's brighter red-gold hair. Her eyebrows had been darkened, and she had added touches of color to her face to lend her complexion a deeper shade of peach. Mary smoothed back the coiffeured red wig with a delicate touch.

"It feels as if I'm wearing a helmet," she said.

"I was seventeen the last time I had this much hair piled on my head."

It would have suited Ryder if Mary had changed nothing about herself and had remained behind, but she had presented a convincing argument that her presence would be a diversion of sorts and thereby make him less likely to be carefully questioned or watched. Ryder watched Mary fix her hair and retouch her lips with a bit of rouge. She was actually looking forward to this, he thought. The hours spent in Miss Marie's company this morning had certainly had their influence. It wouldn't have surprised him now if Mary announced she was taking up the stage.

"Did you really tell Miss Marie the patients clutched her picture to their chests?"

he asked.

"Of course I did," she said.

"It's true. Well, perhaps 'clutched' is overstating their attachment to those cigarette photographs, but they did collect and admire them.

Miss Marie was touched."

"I'm certain you made sure she was."

"She helped us, didn't she? What's more, I was able to discover she recalls your uncle. Senator Stillwell did indeed make her acquaintance last night as you suspected. She remembered him being very pleasant and offering her a proper congratulation on her performance."

"My uncle has a glib tongue. If he's polite, he has reason to be."

"Miss Marie was impressed with him," Mary said, then added gently, "it wouldn't hurt to keep an open mind about your uncle." Ryder made a small, cantankerous grunt befitting the old man he was supposed to be.

The subject was closed. At the War Office, Mary did almost all of the talking.

She introduced herself as the widow of Samuel Conklin, Ryder as her father-in-law. They were interested, she said, in records from the War Between the States, most especially in anything to do with the battles at Shiloh and Vicksburg. She explained she was trying to locate a journal her husband had begun when he'd enlisted and that was not returned with the rest of his belongings after his death.

Her tone was quiet, her manner dignified. She let the fabricated facts speak for themselves and didn't attempt to push or cajole anyone into making exceptions for her. Ryder watched her entrance everyone she spoke to. As a result of her performance very little attention was paid to him. They were given a room off the main records room. It was small and windowless, a cubbyhole really, but it was furnished with a table and chairs and two oil lamps. In the beginning the Army clerks brought the records into the room, but as the afternoon wore on and Mary never found what she pretended to want, they allowed her to search in the larger room herself.

While she pored over letters of commendation and enlistment ledgers from a war that was about a score of years in the past, Ryder made free with more recent files that accounted for most of what had happened in the Western Campaign. The clerks never noticed he was looking at papers different from the ones Mary perused. On one occasion they found him in the wrong area of the records room, but it didn't raise their suspicions. Thinking he was lost, they simply turned him around and shooed him in the direction of the right stacks. Their manner was solicitous but vaguely condescending, and Ryder abided it only because it served his purpose. Mary scribbled notes as she read. Except for the things Ryder asked her to take down most of them were nonsensical.

She would have preferred to read the same accounts as he, but she knew her role was to divert suspicion and she had to be satisfied with that.

On the way out she made a point of thanking everyone who had been so kind to her. She was particularly gracious to the clerks, calling them by name. When Ryder began to make impatient noises about leaving, she apologized for him but allowed that it had been a long afternoon and had dredged up many memories.

Outside the War Office Mary heaved a sigh of relief.

"This is one widow they won't forget anytime soon. That's good, don't you think?"

"Very good. You were very good."

"Don't kiss me," she said quickly, looking up at him.

"At least not the way I think you want to."

"It shows, does it?" She nodded, glad that it did.

It boded well for the future when he really was an old man. Taking his arm, Mary led him down the stone steps.

"Let's walk awhile," she said.

"An afternoon of sitting in close quarters has done me in. I'm as stiff as you're supposed to be." Feeling the need to stretch his own legs, Ryder agreed.

"Well?" she asked when they had gone only a few feet.

"You're going to tell me, aren't you?

What did you learn? Certainly nothing I read was of any help."

"And it wasn't supposed to be," he said.

"Do you really want to know now? I'll only have to repeat myself when we get to my uncle's." Wilson Stillwell's Washington home was a large white clapboard Victorian house with blue shutters and gingerbread molding. Unlike the Hamiltons' fenced-in property, this senator's grounds were separated from his neighbors on either side by a low, neatly trimmed hedge. There was no circular drive at the front of the residence. Carriages would deposit their passengers on the street and guests would follow the walk to the front door. The view from the street was cheerful and bespoke a comfortable and unfussy elegance. The interior was much the same. Mary and Ryder were shown to the front parlor to wait as the senator was not home when they arrived. Rather than return later they elected to stay.

Once the housekeeper left them alone, Mary wandered about the room, trying to learn something of the man from his furnishings.

"The housekeeper didn't see through your disguise," she said, picking up a delicate jade figurine. There were a number of Oriental carvings in the room, most of them jade, a few ivory, all of them quite exquisite. Ryder stretched out in a mauve brocade wing chair.

"She's never seen me before." he said.

"That's why." Mary glanced at the mantel which was crowded with photographs.

"I.

don't know about that." she said. She replaced the figurine and went over to the mantel. Picking up an ornate gilded frame, she studied the photo within for several moments.

"This is you as a West Point cadet." Ryder nodded.

"It's all for appearances, Mary. It's what he thinks makes the best impression on his constituency. He wants to show good taste but not to excess. He would abhor Hamilton's mansion." Sighing, Mary replaced the photograph and looked at the others. She recognized Ryder as a young boy in a family picture with his mother and father. His sister Molly was still a babe in arms. Ryder's appearance, a blend of his father's hard profile and his mother's coloring, was very solemn as he stared at the camera. She could imagine even at that early age he had had no trouble remaining still. There was a wedding photograph of Wilson and his wife, another of Ryder's parents. The last frame didn't hold a picture at all but a lock of baby-fine golden hair.

"His daughter's?" Mary asked, holding it up for Ryder to see.

"That's right. A poignant touch, isn't it?"

Mary gave him a sour look.

"This sarcasm of yours is not becoming. I can't think of one reason your uncle would be moved to help us if you continue to act in such a manner." Ryder drew in a breath and let it out slowly.

"I'll do better," he said quietly.

The housekeeper chose that moment to return. She carried a tray with tea for Mary and wine for Ryder. She served both, waited for their approval, then left as silently as she had come. Mary eyed Ryder's wine glass suspiciously.

"You don't drink," she said.

"Why did you choose that?" Ryder had specifically asked for Montrachet and had even noted the year he wanted. Mary thought it a strange jest on his part until the housekeeper appeared with the bottle.

"My uncle's secret vice," he said, raising his glass.

"His wine cellar is where you can find the excess that appears nowhere else in this house. In the short time I lived here he had it expanded twice to accommodate his growing collection. He's very particular about the temperature and the light down there, and he has one servant who's responsible for seeing that the bottles are uniformly and regularly turned. Do you want to see it?"

"I'll let him show me," she said.