"Here's a big liberties case for you." I "You won it, didn't you?" she said.

"Surel he said sullenly.

"On perjured testimony."

"What?" Her mouth flew open.

He remembered that she was a reporter as well as his friend.

"Off the record, of course," he said quickly, raising his hand. She grimaced, conceding the point, and so he went on.

"My dear father arranged a key witness for me. The witness was pure fabrication.

Perjury all the way." Seeing her incredulity, he added,

"I had no idea at the time. None at all" "But afterward?"

"We were hardly back in the office when my father told me what he'd done. It was to serve a point' Thomas said, "a point my father considered a crucial principle' of courtroom justice" Thomas' paused and recalled with acrimony,

"That will teach you two lessons, Tom,he said to me.

"Nothing, but nothing is black and white.

And never trust another attorney. Even me'" Thomas let his words sink in, waiting for her to speak next.

Her face was contorted into an inquisitive frown. Her mind was racing ahead, wondering if someday she could print the story.

"Is that what you wanted to tell me?" she asked with a certain degree of sympathy.

"No," he said, "that's only background. It explains why I'm a bit of a disappointment. I wasn't honest enough to come forward to tell the court the truth after the trial. I wasn't dishonest enough to do the same sort of thing again. It was as if the old man had been testing me, seeing how corrupt he could make me' ' "A strange sort of challenge to throw down to an only son," she said, hoping he'd keep talking. She almost felt like taking notes, but her memory would suffice.

"He was a strange man'" Thomas said.

"Sometimes I think I never really knew the man. He left me with that feeling. And the feeling that he must have been disappointed because I'm just plain nowhere near as good as he was. Similarly, I disappoint you."

"What?"

"Which is why you and I will never make it on a permanent basis, and why you persist with your casual liaisons with other men.

Which, as you know, drive me insane."

"Thomas-" she snapped.

He held up his hand, cutting her short.

"Please. My final point."

She was silent.

"There is, however, someone I have not disappointed. That person burned me out. And that is why you're here. That is the beginning of the story I'm letting you in on. But it's also all I know."

"Who burned the offices?" she asked flatly.

"I don't know," he said.

"But someone had to have a certain folder from my files. Imagine.

Something so valuable in those crumbling old files that someone went to these lengths to get it. The old man would have appreciated that wouldn't he?"

"All right," she said.

"You've got me. I want to know. What was it?"

"Don't know," he said with exasperated amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Something long forgotten, but so valuable that it had to be taken without anyone even learning that it was missing. Want more?"

"I didn't come for the lecture," she said.

"Wonderful." He smiled.

"Follow me" He led her into the filing room and gestured her toward the burned frames and ashen contents of the wooden filing cabinets.

He could see her discomfort.

He walked to one of the remaining files. A drawer was open, just as he had left it before calling her.

"I have a good memory," he said, pointing toward the cabinet.

"These drawers were the Ss" He patted the charred frame of the file.

"The beginning of the Ss.

"S' as in Sandler."

"Sandler as in Victoria Sandler?"

"The same " "Cut the bulls.h.i.t, Tom. I want to know what you're talking about."

"With pleasure," he said.

Carefully he drew her closer to the open file drawer. He fingered the drawer's contents. The drawer had not been tightly shut during the blaze, and much of the fire had crept in. Yet the folders and papers hadn't been completely destroyed. The tops and corners had been burned or blackened, but the lower half of each particular folder was intact.

"I would never have noticed this if I hadn't seen Victoria Sandler's obituary," he said.

"Her death was reported the day of the fire."

"Yes." Andrea had an inquisitive frown on her forehead.

"So?"