He was about to turn back, convinced that he'd made a mistake, when he saw two weathered stone gateposts up ahead. Beyond them an avenue of ancient cypresses climbed sharply toward a large villa, the trunks of the trees powdered white with dust thrown up from the driveway. There was no sign beside the gateposts, but a quick glance at the handdrawn map Signora Docci had sent him confirmed that he had at last arrived.

    Nearing the top of the driveway, he stopped, uncertain, sensing something. He turned, glancing back down the gradient, the plunging perspective of the flanking cypresses.

    Something not right. But what? He couldn't say. And he was too hot to ponder it further.

    The cypresses gave way to a gravel turning area in front of the villa. There were some farm buildings away to his left, down the slope, beyond a stand of holm oaks, but his attention was focused on the main structure.

    How had Professor Leonard described the architecture of the villa? Pedestrian?

    Admittedly, his own knowledge on the subject was drawn almost exclusively from a battered copy of Edith Wharton's book on Italian villas, but there seemed to be nothing whatsoever run- of-the-mill about the building in front of him. Though not as large or obviously grand as some, its symmetry and proportions lent it an air of discreet nobility, majesty even.

    Set around three sides of a flagstone courtyard, it climbed three floors to a shallow, tiled roof with projecting eaves. Arcaded loggias occupied the middle and upper stories of the front facade, while the wings consisted of blind arcades with pedimented and consoled windows. There was not much more to it than that, but every detail of it worked.