In the end, Maltby had descended to the lowest rung in the antiquities trade. He had become a ruin rat, eking out a meager living by sneaking illegally in and out of the catacombs in hopes of turning up the occasional valuable relic.

Several of Lydia's acquaintances in the Old Quarter had told her that, during the brief spells when he was able to kick his habit long enough to go underground, Maltby sometimes showed up with some spectacular finds. No one knew where he did his secret excavating work down in the catacombs and, honoring the unspoken rules that governed the less legitimate side of the antiquities trade, no one asked.

She listened intently for a few seconds and heard no sirens. She had a few minutes before the medics and the police arrived. Surely there was no harm in looking around.

Trying not to look at the body, she moved to the desk and surveyed the cluttered surface. There were several aging copies of the Journal of Para-archaeology stacked randomly on one corner. Pens, papers, and a notebook were scattered about in a careless fashion.

She unfastened her shoulder bag, removed a tissue, and used it to open the notebook. The scribbling inside appeared to be a series of angry rebuttals to various papers that had appeared in recent editions of the Journal of Para-archaeology; letters to the editor that would never have been published.

She closed the notebook and surveyed the desk. Something about the arrangement of the items on it seemed off. All of the things that one might expect to see on an academic's desk were present, including a small pad of paper, heaps of reference books, a lamp, and a blotter. There was no computer but that was not a surprise. Maltby had probably sold it long ago to buy Chartreuse. Either that or it had been stolen. This was a rough neighborhood.