The Key to Midnight

childhood and adolescence in London, as she had believed for so long; this was her first visit to England. Robert and Elizabeth Rand had existed only in a handful of phony documents - and, of course, in her mind.
        As the windshield wipers thumped like a heartbeat, she thought of her real father, Thomas Chelgrin, lying dead on that hotel-room floor, and she wished that the image of the bloodied senator could reduce her to tears. Feeling grief would be better than feeling nothing at all. But her heart was closed to him.
        She put her hand on Alex's shoulder, just to reassure herself that he was real and that she was not alone.
        He glanced at her, evidently sensed her mood, and winked.
        The storm continued without surcease. On the black highway, the headlights shimmered like the lambent glow of the moon reflecting off the glassy surface of a swift-flowing river.
        'Just west of Brighton,' Alex said, 'on the way to Worthing, there's a quaint little inn called the Bell and the Dragon. It's a couple of hundred years old but beautifully kept, and the food's quite good.'
        'Won't we need a reservation?'
        'Not this late in the year. The tourist season is long past. They ought to have a few nice rooms available.'
        When they arrived at the Bell and the Dragon a short while later, the only sign announcing it was a large wooden billboard hung from a crossbar between two posts near the highway - no neon, no well-lighted announcement panel advertising an early-bird dinner special or a piano bar. The inn was tucked in a stand of ancient oaks, and the parking lot was nearly as dark as it must have been in the days when the guests arrived in horse-drawn coaches. It was a rambling structure, pleasing to the eye, half brick and half plaster with a crosswork of rugged, exposed beams. The front doors were fashioned from oak timbers and featured hand-carved plaques indicating that beds, food, and drink were offered inside. In the lobby and public rooms, soft electric lights hidden in converted gas lamps imparted a marvelous luster to the polished, richly inlaid paneling.
        Alex and Joanna were given spacious quarters on the second floor. White plaster walls. Darkly stained beams. A pegged oak floor protected by plush area carpets.
        Joanna examined the griffin-head water spouts in the bathroom, was pleased to find that the stone fireplace in the bedroom would actually work if they chose to use it, and finally threw herself on the four-poster bed. 'It's absolutely delightful.'
        'It belongs to another age - one more hospitable than ours.'
        'It's charming. I love it. How often have you stayed here?'
        The question appeared to surprise him. He stared at her but didn't speak.
        She sat up on the bed. 'What's wrong?'
        He turned slowly in a full circle, studying the room. At last he said, 'I've never stayed here before.'
        'Who told you about it?'
        'I haven't the slightest idea. I've never been to Brighton before, can't remember ever talking to anyone about it -except to you, of course. This is the third time today.'
        'The third time what?' Joanna asked.
        He went to the nearest window and gazed into the rainy darkness beyond. 'It's the third time I've known about something I shouldn't know about. Have no way of knowing about. Creepy. Before I opened that note this morning, I knew it was from the senator.'
        'That was just a good guess,' Joanna said.
        'And before we ever got to his hotel room, before I saw that his door was ajar, I knew Tom Chelgrin was dead.'
        'Intuition.'
        Alex turned away from the window, shaking his head. 'No. This place is more than a hunch. I knew the name -The Bell and the Dragon. I knew exactly how it would look, as if I'd seen it before.'
        'Maybe someone told you about it, but you just don't recall. Or you read about it in a travel article, one with photographs.'
        'No. I'd remember,' he insisted.
        'Not if it was a few years ago. Not if it was casual reading. Maybe a magazine in a doctor's office. Something you skimmed and pretty much forgot, except this place stuck in your subconscious.'
        'Maybe,' he said, though he was obviously unconvinced.
        He turned to the window again, put his face close to the glass, and stared into the night, as if certain that people were out there staring back at