Hannah spotted a leather-bound appointment book on the credenza near the door and she walked over to page through it. Wednesday’s date was marked: TSB Convention. She recognized Betty’s handwriting. There was another note at the top, scrawled in what she assumed was Max’s untidy hand. It said: Meet W.

“Look, Hannah.” Andrea sounded insistent. “See all the footprints on this carpet?”

Hannah looked down at the carpet and saw footprints in the deep pile. “You’re a genius, Andrea. If you hadn’t mentioned it, I might have trampled right over them. Follow me and keep to the sides of the room. Let’s see if we can find any footprints in front of Max’s desk.”

Hugging the wall, Hannah moved forward until she was even with the front of Max’s desk. Andrea was right behind her, and Hannah pointed to the tracks in front of one of the chairs. “There! That proves someone was in here with Max.”

“And we know Max was here. See those marks from the wheels of his chair?”

“I see them,” Hannah acknowledged, and then she pointed to another series of tracks. “But I’m more concerned about those.”

Andrea studied the indentations in the pile of the carpet. “They’re going right to that door.”

“The original dairy. Max must have taken his visitor in there. We’d better check it out.”

“Why would he take someone in there?”

“He told us that he used it for the storage of old records,” Hannah explained. “Come on. Let’s see if it’s open.”

With Andrea following at her heels, Hannah pushed open the door and found the light switch. She gestured toward the shelves of file boxes lining the small brick building. “I guess he’s still using it for storage.”

“Is that the original safe?” Andrea pointed to the old safe in the corner.

“It must be. It looks old.” Hannah walked over to examine the safe door. It was standing open, but it didn’t look damaged in any way. “Max must have opened it for some reason.”

As Hannah searched through the contents, she kept up a running commentary so that Andrea would know what she was doing. “There’s no sign of a robbery or anything like that. Here’s a bundle of cash and a jewelry box.” Hannah snapped open the box and looked inside. “It’s a pair of gold cufflinks. They look like antiques. Maybe they belonged to Max’s grandfather. And here’s an antique pocket watch and a man’s diamond ring. There’s a Rolex, too. That must be fairly new. I don’t think they made them when Max’s father was alive. I didn’t notice any kind of a safe in Max’s house, so I guess this is where he keeps his personal valuables.”

Her eyes were drawn to a few stapled papers on one of the shelves, and Hannah reached out for them. “Here’s the speech that Betty typed for Max, just sitting on top of these files. Max must have picked it up from Betty’s desk before he came in here.”