“I know it wasn’t.” He turned to face her, and she saw that he was holding a somewhat tarnished silver teapot. “And you’d taken the Marx, so it wasn’t as if it was lying around for him to trip over, was it? For which I believe I owe you thanks enough to cancel out any ill will resulting from his unwelcome visit.” He held up the pot. “Can I offer you some refreshment, while you explain why you’re here?”

“Sure.” She glanced in the opposite direction. “In there?”

“The morning room, by all means. I will be but a few moments.”

Miriam walked into Burgeson’s morning room and got a surprise. The room was perfectly round. Even the window frames and the door were curved in line with the wall, and the plaster moldings around the ceiling described a perfect circle twelve feet in diameter. It was also extremely untidy. A huge and dubious Chesterfield sofa with stuffing hanging out of its arms hulked at one side, half submerged beneath a flood of manuscripts and books. An odd-looking upright piano, its scratched lid supporting a small library, leaned drunkenly against the wall. There was a fireplace, but the coals in it barely warmed the air immediately in front of it, and the room was icy cold. A plate with the remnants of a cold lunch sat next to the fireplace. Miriam sat gingerly on the edge of the sofa. The sofa was cold too, so that it seemed to suck the heat right through her layers of heavy clothing.

“How do you take your tea?” Burgeson called. “Milk, sugar?”

He was moving in the hall. She slipped a hand into her bag and pulled out her weapon, and pointed its spine at him. “Milk, no sugar,” she replied.

“Very good.” He advanced, bearing a tray, and laid it down in front of the fireplace. There were, she noticed, bags under his eyes. He looked tired, or possibly ill. “What’s that?” He asked, staring at her hand.

“One good history book deserves another,” she said evenly.

“Oh dear.” He chuckled hoarsely. “You know I can’t offer you anything for it. Not on a Sunday. If the police—”

“Take it, it’s a gift,” she said impatiently.

“A gift?” From his expression Miriam deduced that the receipt of presents was not an experience with which Erasmus Burgeson was well acquainted—he made no move to take it. “I’m touched, m’dear. Mind if I ask what prompted this unexpected generosity?” He was staring at her warily, as if he expected her to sprout bat wings and bite him.

“Sure,” she said easily. “If you would pour the tea before it gets cold? Is it always this cold here in, uh, whatever this city is called?”

He froze for a moment, then knelt down and began pouring tea from the pot into two slightly chipped Delft cups. “Boston.”