“That’s right.” Millett nodded and drove away. Connor got into his own car, lit his pipe, and tried to enjoy a smoke while he absorbed the impact of what he had heard. Angela and he had never discussed finance—she simply had no interest in the subject—and it was only through oblique references that he guesstimated the size of her inheritance as in the region of a million, perhaps two. But Avalon was a rich man’s folly in the old Randolph Hearst tradition. Surrounded by a dozen square miles of the choicest land in Philadelphia, it was the nearest thing to a royal palace that existed outside Europe.

Real estate was not one of Connor’s specialties, but he knew that anybody buying Avalon would have had to open the bidding at ten million or more. In other words, Angela was not merely rich—she had graduated into the millionaires’ super-league, and it was hardly surprising that her emotional life had been affected.

Connor was puzzled, nevertheless, over the fact that she was selling all her furniture. There was, among several cherished pieces, a Gaudreau writing desk for which she had always shown an exaggerated possessiveness. Suddenly aware that he could neither taste nor smell the imported tobacco which had seemed so good in his pouch, Connor extinguished his pipe and drove out onto the highway.

He had traveled south for some five miles before admitting to himself that he was going to Avalon.

The house itself was invisible, screened from the road by a high redbrick wall. Age had mellowed the brickwork, but the coping stones on top had a fresh appearance and were surmounted by a climb-proof wire fence. Connor drove along beside the wall until it curved inwards to a set of massive gates which were closed. At the sound of his horn, a thickset man with a gun on his hip, wearing a uniform of café-au-lait gabardine, emerged from a lodge. He looked out through the gate without speaking.