Then the smell, which was faintest, half like a forest and half like old linen, but sharp.

“And have you seen Angelo?” he asked.

“No, sir.” Her dress was the russet of a bright red cover faded over forty years.

“I didn’t think he’d be back yet.” The counter stretched across the right side of the room and stairs went up the left side, and a rail ran across the back.

“And have we sold anything?”

“A 1940 Gone With the Wind.”

“I can empathize with Scarlet,” he said. “I feel like I’ve just come from the burning of Atlanta.”

He opened the gate in the middle of the rail and climbed the steps.

“There you are.”

Her voice was quicksilver and light and everything peaceful.

“Here I am,” Charles said. “Dorothy, it was worse than I’d expected.”

“I’m sorry.” Her hair was slow silver, short and easy, and lovely. “Were you there long?”

“Twenty minutes. But I sat beside Norman Highberg.”

“Oh, dear.” She smiled, which was the moon at its brightest. “Did you get the books?”

“Yes, for twenty-seven. I had to outbid Jacob Leatherman just at the end. Oh, he scowled!”

“He’ll get over it, and you will, too. I’m glad you got them. It helps to close the circle with Derek.”

“It does help. And I have to tell you about Derek’s desk.” His own desk was at the front window, and he sat and pushed aside newspapers and magazines and catalogs to make space for an elbow.

“I suppose there was something special about it?” Anything would be special if she only spoke its name.

“Everything he had was special. But this was more than just ordinary special.”

“It was auctioned today?”

“Yes, and sensationally.” Now that he was sitting, he stretched his back, and put his hands behind his head. “I came in right in the middle of it. It should have gone twenty-five thousand, and it was about to go for thirty-four, and whoosh, two people bid it right up to a hundred and five thousand. There was a riot.”