“No one has ever complained about your care of him,” I assured Rivas. “I wanted to talk to you about something different.”

I took out the photograph of Marc and Harriet Whitby. “This man came to see Mr. Taverner last week, didn’t he?”

When he nodded and said, yes, the man had been there on Thursday, I continued, “You know he was killed on Sunday. I’m wondering if he came back to see Mr. Taverner Sunday evening.”

Rivas slowly shook his head. “Sunday I do not work, I spend with my family. Maybe this man comes back again when I am not there, although Mr. Taverner, he says nothing on Monday, nothing about a visitor.”

That was disappointing. “On Thursday, when Mr. Whitby did see Mr. Taverner, do you know what they talked about?”

“Papers. Old papers Mr. Taverner wants to show this man. He keeps them in a locked drawer in his desk. I never see them. I only help Mr.

Taverner walk to the desk: with a visitor he does not like to use a wheelchair, he does not like to seem helpless. Many of my old people are like that, very proud. And he is the proudest of the proud, Mr. Taverner. I help him walk to his desk, I help him undo the lock, I help him walk back to the man, then I wait in the kitchen while they talk. In case he needs tea, water, whisky or suddenly needs help, you understand, with his private functions, sometimes they come-came-on him suddenly.”

Rivas’s solemn courtesy would be comforting to people whose strength was waning, but who prized their dignity. “Were the papers written or typed?”

“They were written by hand. That much I know. What they say, that I do not know.”

“And did he give them to Marc Whitby?”

“No, Mr. Taverner shows them only. The other man, he writes things from the papers into a little notebook that he carries in his pocket, but when he goes away, Mr. Taverner, he locks the papers again in his desk.” “And did Mr. Taverner say anything to you about the papers?”

“He says what the old so often say, he says, `I will die soon, the time to hold secrets is over.”’

I thanked him, but when I tried to offer him money for his time, he drew himself up to his full height and said quietly he did not take money for such things. I felt embarrassed, as one does in making a social mistake, and left the room ahead of him, stopping at the administrator’s desk to get Taverner’s address.

Rivas caught up with me at the exit. “I am thinking someone has been visiting Mr. Taverner on Monday night. Not Sunday, when this black man dies, but the next night. On Monday, I leave Mr. Taverner as always at nine-thirty, ready to go to bed but not in bed, that he likes to do by himself He likes to sit in his chair with his whisky, to read or sometimes to write, and then move into his bed when he is ready for that. For the private functions in the night, he has a bottle on his chair and one on his bed.