“ ‘Have you packed up little Miss Stanford in her neat little box?’ I asked.

“ ‘You’re losing it, Little Boss,’ she said. ‘Now mind your manners. Don’t talk to Allen and Clem the way you’ve been talking. You’ve always been Aunt Queen’s gentleman, don’t get rough now. Don’t let this place make you contrary.’

“ ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I asked.

“She looked up thoughtfully at the Hermitage, and then at me, her face positively exquisite with its cacao skin and large pale eyes, eyes that were green or golden.

“ ‘Take after your Aunt Queen,’ she said. ‘That’s the only point I’m trying to make, and yes, I have the remains of your ghost girlfriend in the casket. God only knows whatever else I have in this casket.’

“ ‘Make love to me when we get home,’ I said. ‘I’m no good for ordinary life. You don’t see the ghosts I see. You didn’t see that girl hanging by the hook. I’ve been having ghosts. They’ve been having me. I have to have somebody real. Make love to me when we get home, you and me, all right? Be my chocolate candy. I’m real unsure of my masculinity.’

“ ‘You are?’ she shot back. ‘Well, you could have fooled me.’

“Clem stood over me. ‘Quinn, it’s an empty coffin. You better come take a look at this for yourself. This is sort of your show, sonny boy.’

“I did. It was made of heavy iron, very ornate, and lightly rusted, with a window in it through which one could see the face of the deceased, I presume, though I’d never seen one like it. It had taken five of them with two crowbars to open it. It was lined with something. I thought it was lead. It was dry and soft to my touch. It was lead.

“And the coffin was in a vault of lead. Yeah, it was lead. And well sealed. Though the vault went down some three feet there was no sign that moisture had ever penetrated it.

“I stepped down into the vault, and for a long time I stood there, inside the mausoleum—in the vault—merely staring at the empty coffin. There was just room to walk around it, which I did.

“I climbed back up and out into the sunshine.

“ ‘Do you know how many of us it took to open that gold door?’ Allen asked. ‘What do you make of all this? What’s that writing up there? You can read that, can’t you, Quinn?’