I had come prepared to break the glass if I had to; one of the useful objects Schmidt had pressed upon me was a roll of tape. However, the French doors weren’t locked. The parlour was lighted but empty. After I had closed the door behind me I relaxed a little, though I knew the feeling of greater safety was mostly wishful thinking. There were places to hide, behind draperies and furniture, but several of the pieces I had seen before were gone – into one of the moving vans, I supposed.

I wished I were more familiar with the plan of the house. Somewhere, I felt certain, there were rooms not open to the general public, and I wasn’t thinking of the kitchen and service areas. But if they were as secret as they had to be – underground, protected by every possible security device – access wouldn’t be easy. I had decided I would investigate the bedrooms first.

My turban had come unhitched and my hands were too unsteady to deal with the damned thing. I tied it around my neck in a neat Girl Scout knot and padded towards the hall and the front stairs.

If the man who came down the stairs had been barefoot I would have walked right into him. He was wearing boots and his step was firm and confident; I heard him coming and ducked back into the parlour, praying that room wasn’t his destination. He went the other way, heading for Larry’s study. The door opened and I heard voices before it closed again.

Evidently a business meeting was in progress. There had been several voices, including a woman’s soprano, considerably louder and shriller than her usual soft tones. I hadn’t dared look to see who the latest arrival had been – Max? Larry? – but at least four of them were now in the office.

Lifting my skirts, I ran up the stairs. All the doors along the corridor were closed; lights in antique bronze sconces shone brightly.

A methodical searcher would have tried each door in turn. That procedure had its risks, however. It was too much to expect that all of them would be in Larry’s study. If I opened the door of an occupied room the search would end then and there. I tried the door of Schmidt’s former room first, and then that of my own. Both were dark. I had to turn on the lights to make certain nobody was there. It was not a very smart move, but I hadn’t thought of bringing a flashlight. There were a lot of things I hadn’t thought of.