A pair of wall racks, one holding cue sticks, the other a locked cabinet that displayed sporting rifles and shotguns. A couple of overstuffed leather chairs. An elaborate bar, the crystal glassware etched with game birds in flight. Enough liquor in one form or another to float a fair-sized cabin cruiser, plus decanters of sherry and port and brandy placed at convenient intervals about the room. A smoker’s stand, mahogany, with a few dozen briar pipes and two cased meerschaums. A cedar cabinet of Havanas. A whole room of brass and wood and leather, and I yearned to nail the door shut and pour myself a stiff Armagnac and stay there forever.

Instead I scanned the bookshelves. They were a jumble, but there was no shortage of dollar value. While they ran heavily to uncut sets of leather-bound memoirs of unremembered hangers-on at pre-Revolutionary Versailles, there were plenty of other items as well, many of which I’d never seen outside of the catalogs of the better book dealers and auction galleries. I happened on a pristine first of Smollet’s rarest novel, The Adventures of Sir Laurence Greaves, and there were any number of fine bindings and important first editions and Limited Editions Club issues and private press productions, all arranged in no discernible order and according to no particular plan.

I took one book from the shelves. It was bound in green cloth and not much larger than an ordinary paperback. I opened it and read the flowing inscription on the flyleaf. I paged through it, closed it, and put it back on the shelf.

I left the library as I’d found it.

The stairs were dark. I used my flashlight, went up and down the staircase three times. There was one board that creaked and I made sure I knew which one it was. Fourth from the top.