her , and if he had thought of her at all , it had been with the kind of indifferent contempt he felt toward all actresses . All body and no brain . But , God , how wrong he had been ! Since meeting Noelle he had fallen hopelessly in love with her . Because of Noelle Page he had broken his cardinal rule : never become emotionally involved with a client . Chotas remembered vividly the afternoon he had been approached to undertake her defense . He had been in the midst of packing for a three-week vacation trip that he and his mistress were going to make to Paris and London . Nothing , he had believed , could have stopped him from making that journey . But it had only taken two words . In his mind ’ s eye he saw his butler walk into the bedroom , hand him the telephone and say , “ Constantin Demiris .”
The island was inaccessible except by helicopter and yacht , and both the airfield and the private harbor were patrolled twenty-four hours a day by armed guards with trained German shepherds . The island was Constantin Demiris ’ private domain , and no one intruded without an invitation . Over the years its visitors had included kings and queens , presidents and ex-presidents , movie stars , opera singers and famous writers and painters . They had all come away awed . Constantin Demiris was the third wealthiest , and one of the most powerful men in the world , and he had taste and style and knew how to spend his money to create beauty .
Demiris sat in his richly paneled library now , relaxed in a deep armchair , smoking one of the flat-shaped Egyptian cigarettes especially blended for him , thinking about the trial that would begin in the morning . The press had been trying to get to him for months , but he had simply made himself unavailable . It was enough that his mistress was going to be tried for murder , enough that his name would be dragged into the case , even indirectly . He refused to add to the furor by granting any interviews . He wondered what Noelle was feeling now , at this moment , in her cell in the Nikodemous Street Prison . Was she asleep ? Awake ? Filled with panic at the ordeal that lay before her ? He thought of his last conversation with Napoleon Chotas . He trusted Chotas and knew that the lawyer would not fail him . Demiris had impressed upon the attorney that it did not matter to him whether Noelle was innocent or guilty . Chotas was to see to it that he earned every penny of the stupendous fee that Constantin Demiris was paying him to defend her . No , he had no reason to worry . The trial would go well . Because Constantin Demiris was a man who never forgot anything , he remembered that Catherine Douglas ’ favorite flowers were Triantafylias , the beautiful roses of Greece . He reached forward and picked up a note pad from his desk . He made a notation . Triantafylias . Catherine Douglas .
It was the least he could do for her .