But while Vaughn was a fairly common name, there weren't all that many Vaughns with family mansions in snooty Belliston Square. In fact, there was only one. By a miracle, Vaughn House had remained in the family, escaping both the Blitz and bankruptcy, until the twelfth earl had left instructions in his will for its conversion into a public museum upon his death, apparently for the sole purpose of irritating his children. From what I was able to make out on the Web site, the bulk of the Vaughn Collection had been acquired by Sebastian, Lord Vaughn — my Vaughn — who seemed to have made his way across the Continent by buying up everything in his path.

A cover for other activities? Or merely the acquisitive instincts of a born connoisseur? I intended to find out. At least, I hoped to find out. Whether I would or not was another story entirely.

I hadn't been entirely honest with my new buddy, the receptionist. It hadn't been the archivist I had spoken with on the phone the day before, but a sort of assistant. He had sounded utterly baffled by my wanting to visit the collection. This did not inspire me with confidence.

The archives, he had informed me, around a yawn, were mostly documents establishing provenance of the artwork and all that sort of thing. There were, he allowed, some family papers still floating around. Yes, he thought there might be some from the late eighteenth, early nineteenth century. He supposed if I really wanted to come see them…The implication, of course, being that any sane person would rather spend a Saturday afternoon watching a cricket match, or watching paint dry, which amounts to much the same thing, as far as I've been able to tell. The whole conversation had been pretty much the professional equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and chanting, "Nobody's home!"

Between the receptionist and the guy I had spoken to on the phone, I got the impression that the Vaughn Collection wasn't awfully keen on visitors. Which is a little counterproductive when you're a museum. I was fervently hoping that the archivist's assistant's attitude (I dare you to say that three times fast) was born more of laziness than of the fact that there just plain wasn't anything there.