“I never had much of a chance, I’m afraid. In addition to having the sweetest smile, and the merriest blue eyes, she was the widowed daughter of a senator. We had four weeks before her father intervened and engaged her to some awful little junior legislator.” Henry grimaced, shrugging. “She wasn’t terribly distraught, it must be said.”

“Poor fellow,” Sam said, clapping a hand to Henry’s shoulder and accidentally causing the slighter man to stumble. “And now you live as a monk, abjuring all female companionship, hollow inside and impervious to the charms of the fairer sex.…” He shook his head. “Tragic, really.”

“Yes, it’s but a pale reflection of life,” Henry sighed.

“So how’s the chorus girl then?”

“In fine voice.”

They laughed companionably and turned onto the street leading to Sam’s rented house. It was a tidy two-story stone house, surrounded by a little yard and fronted by a bright blue door.

“What should I expect to see?” Henry said as they walked up the path to the door. “On a scale of messy to natural disaster?”

“It’s as neat as if my own mother were here.”

“So well past natural disaster and into the apocalypse, then?”

Sam pushed open the door and they walked into the house. He waited patiently while Henry shrieked and pulled his hair in horror. It wasn’t that bad, Sam thought, surveying the room. After all, what was furniture for if not to provide surface space? Sure, chairs were supposed to be sat in, but that was a narrow and inefficient view. One person, even two people, didn’t need ten chairs hanging around unused. And, all right, if he didn’t currently have even one chair available, he knew which one was easiest to clear off. It was the uncomfortable wooden one, over by the window.

Maybe Henry would like it better if he had a place to sit down. Obligingly, Sam walked over to the chair and began to clear it, moving the metal sheets he had definitely needed for something to the floor.

“Here,” he said. “Would you like to sit down?”

Henry turned, his face a rictus of horror, his light brown hair sticking up wildly. “I may faint,” he said. “It’s only been a week, Sam. How?”

Sam hunched his shoulders. “It’s clean,” he pointed out. “Just messy. Messy’s okay.”

“Messy!”

“You’re shrieking again.”

“This isn’t messy; it’s a bloody tornado strike zone!”

“But a clean one,” Sam pointed out hastily. “The maid, Sally May, she dusts. I’ve seen her.”

“Recently? Because it’s not impossible that one of these piles collapsed on her and she’s just been slowly rotting here for days.”

“Of course I have,” Sam retorted, and then crumpled his brow. “I think.”

Henry blinked.

“I mean, definitely a few days ago.”