Cave whispered something to Iris; then a flow of blood, like the full moon’s tide, poured from his mouth and he was dead.
“Cavesway,” said Paul at last when the silence had been used up: the phrase he had prepared for this moment, inadequate to the reality at our feet.
“Your way,” said Iris as she got to her feet. She looked at Paul calmly, as though they’d met only at that moment. “Your way,” she repeated.
In the other room Stokharin moaned.
Ten
1
Now the work was complete. Cavesword and Cavesway formed a perfect design and all the rest would greatly follow ... or so Paul assumed. I believe if I had been he I should have killed both Iris and myself the same day, removing at one stroke witnesses and opposition. But he did not have the courage and, too, I think he underestimated us, to his own future sorrow.
Iris and I were left alone in the penthouse. Paul, after shaking Stokharin into a semblance of calm, bundled Cave’s body into a blanket and then, with the doctor’s help, put it upon the private elevator.
The next twenty-four hours were a grim carnival. The body of Cave, beautifully arranged and painted, lay in the central auditorium of the center as thousands filed by to see him. Paul’s speech over the corpse was telecast around the world.
Iris and I kept to our separate rooms, both by choice and from necessity since gentle guards stood before our doors and refused, apologetically, to let us out.