He didn't mind. It allowed him to cast an eye around the interior. Any suspicions that the quiet elegance of the villa's exterior owed itself to little more than chance vanished immediately. You sensed the same poised hand at work in the proportions of the vast drawing room that occupied the central section of the ground floor, and giving onto a balustraded terrace out back. The flanking rooms were connected by a run of doorways, perfectly aligned, which generated a telescopic sense of perspective and permitted an uninterrupted view from one end of the villa to the other.

    Adam retreated at the sound of approaching footsteps, not wishing to be caught snooping by the maid, or the housekeeper, or whatever she was.

    Signora Docci lay propped up on a bank of pillows in a four-poster bed of dark wood, reading. She inclined her head toward the door as they entered, peering over the top of her spectacles.

    "Adam," she said, smiling broadly.

    "Hello."

    "Grazie, Maria."

    Maria acknowledged the dismissal with a nod, pulling the door closed behind her as she left.

    Signora Docci gestured for Adam to approach the bed. "Please, it's not contagious, just old age." She laid her book aside and smiled again. "Well, maybe it is contagious."

    Her hair hung loose, tumbling like a silver wave around her shoulders. It seemed too long, too thick, for a woman of her advanced years. A tracery of fine lines lay like a veil across her face, but the flesh was firm, shored up by the prominent bones beneath. Her eyes were dark and wide-spaced.

    He extended his hand. "Pleased to meet you."

    They shook, her grip firm and bony.

    "Please." She indicated a high-backed chair near the bed. "I'm glad you're finally here. Maria has been fussing around for days, tidying and cleaning."