A fourth wall was lined with old photos and portraits of men and women long dead. The room was anchored by a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace, one of the few in the house that worked properly. And even this one tended to belch smoke into the room with regularity. She took a moment to warm herself in front of the flames before turning to look at the people seated around the large Spanish-style table with turned legs that sat in the center of the room.

Reggie nodded to each of them, all older than she except for Dominic, who looked well-rested at the other end of the table. Her gaze then settled on the elderly man who sat at the head of the table. Miles Mallory’s outfit was tweed on tweed with elbow patches, crooked bow tie, a wrinkled shirt with one edge of a collar pointing to the ceiling, sensible blunt-toed shoes, and socks that failed to cover the man’s chubby, hairless shins. He had a massive head circled by a rim of grizzled gray hair that had not seen the barber’s shears in months. His beard, however, was neatly trimmed and matched the color of his hair except for a creamy patch the size of a penny near his chin. The eyes were green and probing, the spectacles covering them thick and black, the jowls heavy, the mouth small and petulant, the teeth tobacco-stained and uniformly leaning on their neighbors. He held a small curved pipe in his right hand and was busily packing it with his most noxious tobacco concoction, which would soon permeate the room and forcibly remove most of the oxygen.

“You look excited, Professor Mallory,” said Reggie pleasantly.

“I have already done so with young Dominic, but may I be the first to congratulate you on your excellent work in Argentina?”

“You could be, but I beat you to it, Prof,” said Whit as he came into the room and handed Reggie a cup of coffee so hot the vapors were still visible though the kitchen was about a mile from the library.

“Ah, well,” said Mallory good-naturedly. “Let me be the second, then.”