DR. ARNOLD EVERSHAM sat at his expansive composition table, his head laying on one long white hand, the other exposed upon the book underneath the table light. There was no other light in the room, yet the lemon-hued dividers of his investigation gleamed in the reflected beams that were tossed from the white smearing cushion to the roof and back once more. The room was outfitted; a dark blue rug secured the focal point of the parquet floor, and crosswise over one divider extended a midget cabinet of dim wood; a chintz-shrouded davenport, a major rocker drawn up by the blossom-filled chimney, two different seats and the composition table established the mass. A couple of Medici prints in dull casings held tight the dividers—a Corot, a Terbosche, a Van Mere, and da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

He turned upward as someone thumped delicately on the entryway, and, so looking, his temples met. He was an especially gorgeous man of fifty-five, marginally dim at the sanctuaries. His slight, scholarly face demonstrated none of the obvious markings that portray men of his years, and his grave, profound set eyes held all the radiance and fire of youth.