In addition to Desmond’s office and Thomas’s, there were two others on the floor. One belonged to a Renaissance scholar on sabbatical and the other was the domain of Celeste Gray. Celeste was a senior faculty member who’d gone to Deerforth as an undergraduate, returned post-doc as a professor, rode out a difficult transition from all-women to coeducational institution, and in general, remained faithful to the school long past the point at which it was considered a virtue to do so. Faithfulness to just about anything other than a pet stays fresh for only eight years before it takes on the rancid smell of indolence or desperation. She was a thin woman in her middle sixties with an acutely wrinkled face, long white hair she wore up in a loose bun, and an air of distracted beatnik brilliance. She taught one course only—Modern Poetry—but seemed to spend most of her time in her office with Helen keeping watch at her feet. Helen was an arthritic malamute, snow white but beginning to go yellow all over.

That morning, the hallway outside his office was uncharacteristically empty and Helen was prostrate in front of Thomas’s open door, her blue eyes draped in misery. He went over to pet Helen and Thomas Miller appeared above him, filling up his doorway.

“Poor old thing,” he said. “She’s stuck with me for the rest of the day.”

Because Desmond was gazing up at him, Thomas Miller looked even larger than he did from a distance. His pale polished pate, surrounded by a ring of light brown hair, seemed to be brushing the top of the door jamb. A few days earlier, Desmond had come upon a stash of Professor Crandersall’s books and papers, carelessly tossed in a heap in one corner of the office. Stuck between the pages of a book on Verrocchio were handwritten notes Crandersall had made, apparently for a projected essay. They read, in part: “Greatest sculptor in Florentine tradition between Donatello and Michelangelo? . . . look up Ruskin on V’s equestrian statue of B. Colleone . . . oh christ, Miller just walked into his office, bet he’s got a cock on him like a mortadello . . . bust of Francesco Sassetti . . . Rossellino or Verrocchio? . . . I’d love to chew on his shin on the top step. As she was taken away on a stretcher, she’d barked out orders on the care and feeding of Helen. “You don’t think they’ll keep her overnight, do you? Jane would kill me if I came home with a dog.” He laughed nervously at the thought, and then added, “Jane’s my wife. Jane Cody. Which reminds me, I have something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Come into my office for a minute, will you?”