Visualize the scene: a side street not far from Piccadilly Circus in London, an outrageously busy shopping district crammed on both sides with fashion chains and department stores. Even the alleys are lined with bistros and boutiques, tidied up to appeal to the passing trade. Pedestrians throng the pavements and overflow into the street, but vehicle traffic is light—thanks to the congestion charge—and slow—thanks to the speed bumps.

Here comes a red-haired woman, smartly dressed in a black skirt, houndstooth-check jacket, medium heels. She's holding a violin case in one hand, her face set in an expression of patient irritation beneath her makeup: a musician heading to a recital, perhaps. She looks slightly uncomfortable, out-of-sorts as she weaves between a pair of braying office workers, yummy mummies pushing baby buggies the size of lunar rovers, a skate punk in dreads, and a beggar woman in hijab. She cuts across the pavement on Glasshouse Street, crosses the road between an overheating BMW X5 and a black cab, and turns into Shaftesbury.

Somewhere in the teeming alleys behind Charing Cross Road there is a narrow-fronted music shop, its window display empty but for a rack of yellowing scores and a collection of lightly tarnished brass instruments. The woman pauses in front of the glass, apparently examining the sheet music. In fact, she's using the window as a mirror, checking the street behind her before she places one hand on the doorknob and pushes. Her close-trimmed nails are smoothly sheathed in enamel the color of overripe grapes: there are calluses on the tips of her fingers.

A bell jingles somewhere out of sight as she enters the shop.

"Good afternoon?"

One side of the shop is occupied by a counter, glass bound in old oak, running back towards a bead-curtained alcove at the rear of the premises. A cadaverous and prematurely aged fellow with watery eyes, dressed as conservatively as an undertaker, shuffles between the hanging strings of beads and blinks at her disapprovingly.

"Mr. Dower? George Dower?" The woman smiles at him tightly, her lips pursed to conceal her teeth.

"I have that honor, yes." He looks at her as if he wishes she'd go away. "Do you have an appointment?"

"As a matter of fact"—the woman slides a hand into her black leather handbag and produces a wallet, which falls open to display a card—"I do. Cassie May, from Sotheby's. I called yesterday?" The card glistens with a strange iridescent sheen in the dim artificial light.

"Oh yes!" His expression brightens considerably. "Yes indeed! A restoration project, I am to understand . . . ?"