Still, Rita seemed determined to make herself as uncomfortable as possible, moving relentlessly from one video loop to the next.

I could think of nothing else to do but follow along in her wake, nobly enduring as she repeated, “Oh, God. Oh my God,” at each new horror.

At the far end of the room, the largest clump of people stood looking at something on the wall that was angled so that we could only see the metal edge of the frame. It was clear from their faces that this was a real doozy, the climax of the show, and I was a little impatient to get to it and get things over with, but Rita insisted on seeing every clip along the way first.

Each one showed the woman doing ever more dreadful things to her leg, until finally, in the last one, a slightly longer clip which showed her sitting still and staring down at her leg, there was nothing left but smooth white bone between her knee and her ankle. The flesh on the foot was left intact, and looked very odd at the end of the pale length of bone.

Even odder was the expression on Jennifer's face, a look of exhausted and triumphant pain that said she had clearly proved something. I glanced again at the program, but I found nothing to say what that something was.

Rita had no apparent insight either. She had fallen into a numb silence, and simply stared at the final clip, watching it three times before shaking her head a last time and moving on as if hypnotized to where the larger group of people stood clustered around the Something in the metal frame at the far end of the room.

It proved to be by far the most interesting piece in the exhibit, the real clincher as far as I was concerned, and I could hear the Passenger chuckling agreement. Rita, for the first time, was unable even to muster another repeat of “Oh my God'.

Mounted on a square of raw plywood and set in a steel frame was Jennifer's leg bone. The whole thing this time, including everything from the knee down.

“Well,” I said. “At least we know for sure it isn't trick photography”

“It's a fake,” Rita asserted, but I don't think she believed it.

Somewhere outside in the bright lights of the world's most glamorous city the church bells were striking the hour. But inside the little gallery there was very little glamour at that moment, and the bells sounded unusually loud —almost loud enough to cover another sound, the sibilance of a small familiar voice letting me know that things were about to get even more interesting, and because I have learned that this voice is almost always right, I turned around to look.

Sure enough, the plot was thickening even as I glanced at the front of the room. As I watched, the door swung open and with a rustle of spangles, Jennifer herself came in.