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Show 159 Almost immediately, a door at the far end of the hall opened, and Charles Bonner came out. He was turned, looking backward into the room he'd just left, so he didn't see Karl. "Hurry," Bonner said to someone in the room. "Come down the back stairs and go to the gardener's cottage." He said it quietly, but his voice, accustomed to speaking with authority, reached Karl. Maybe there really is a poker party going on, Karl thought, but before he had a chance to start down the staircase to tell his father, a woman followed Charles Bonner out of the room. She wore a lacy nightdress, and had her head bent as she struggled to push her arms into the sleeves of a coat. Her long hair hung halfway down her back; she raised an arm to pull the hair free from her coat. Charles Bonner had gone ahead of her and was already descending the back stairs. The woman stumbled, then bent to adjust one of her shoes; in her hurry she must have put them on improperly. As she straightened, she caught sight of Karl. The woman was Yulyona Petrov. For a long moment they stared at one another, Karl too startled to comprehend Yulyona's presence in the general superintendent's mansion. Yulyona's expression was unreadable in the dim light. Charles Bonner's voice rose from the back stairwell. "What's keeping you? Hurry!" Yulyona turned to follow Bonner. Karl, still bewildered, made his way back to the library on the first floor, and had just entered it when Charles Bonner came in, directly behind him. |