I replied that it didn't for me either.

And she said, "So if you don't have any STDs...?" I a.s.sured her in the negative, and she continued, "I live in Tarrytown and I always take a room when I come to these things so I don't have to drive home drunk, but tonight I was hoping to meet a halfway decent man whom I could take upstairs to it."

Yes she was drunk, but not off-puttingly so. We slipped out of the ballroom without further discussion and took the elevator. She was, and is, a laugher, in my experience the rarest o.r.g.a.s.mic sound. Not yucks, as at the Three Stooges, but a rippling glissando somewhere between what you produce when you smack your funny bone and the joyous hysteria of tickled little girls. It takes some getting used to but is truly delightful, like you're with a real friend and not engaged in yet another grim skirmish of the war between the s.e.xes.

So it began. Ingrid and I have little in common. We mostly talk about our former spouses, these sessions occasionally ending in tears. I used to have several Ingrids at one time, but no longer. I believe this is not through any sudden impulse of fidelity but simple exhaustion. Some men I know (and I believe Mickey Haas is one of them) delight in the maintenance of a network of deceptions, playing one woman off against another, provoking operatic scenes, and so on, but not me. I am not even a decent rake. It's simply that I have no power of resistance, and while it is conventional to suppose that it is the man who does the pursuing and wooing, I have not found this to be so. The little story above about me and Ingrid is not at all unique, not even that unusual. They look at you, they make remarks, they hold their bodies in a certain way, and perhaps there are secret pheromones too; the availability is in any case announced and one says, Oh, why not? Or I do, at any rate.

The only real campaign of seduction I have ever carried out was directed against my wife, Amalie, nee Pfannenstieler, and I will have to tell about this too before continuing with the story of Miranda.

(Pretend that time is suspended for now, Miranda and I are still in the paneled room at the library, our hands touching, the electricity flowing like Boulder Dam, pheromones beading up on all slick surfaces....) So-my first job out of law school laboring as an a.s.sociate at Sobel Tennis Carrey, on Beaver Street in the financial district. The firm had a modest practice in trademark and copyright, but anyone could see then-some twenty years ago that was-that intellectual property was going to be big, and I was working like mad in the usual manner of young a.s.sociates. This was during the high tide of the s.e.xual revolution, the first time in recent history when any reasonably well-set-up young fellow could have s.e.x ad lib with females other than wh.o.r.es or courtesans, and in pursuit of this delicious horror I repaired nearly every night to one of several saloons (meat markets, they were amusingly called) in the East Village and uptown to continue and extend my revenge on the girls.

One Sat.u.r.day morning, hungover and having detached myself from my meat market conquest of the previous evening, I went down to my office to complete some work I had scanted so as to get a good start on my Friday-night hijinks. I was in the firm's library, quite alone in the office, when I heard a distant tapping, which I soon determined was coming from the office's locked outer door. Investigating this, I found a young woman standing in the deserted hallway. I recognized her as someone who worked at Barron & Schmidt, a financial outfit with whom we shared the fourteenth floor. We had often risen on the elevator together, me dull with the night's excess, she quiet and neatly turned out but carrying that look on her features that parries the male glance nearly as well as a Pathan burka.

She introduced herself and told me she had locked herself out of her office. I could see she was wretchedly embarra.s.sed by it, especially as it was a trip to the john that had occasioned the flub. Charming little blossoms of red had appeared on her cheeks as a result of conveying this tale. She had fine, white-blond hair gathered in little twisty braids wound around her ears, rather a Pippi Longstocking effect, and she was wearing white jeans and a black Kraftwerke T-s.h.i.+rt, the black-letter text nicely distorted by her pretty pointy b.r.e.a.s.t.s, a Sat.u.r.day outfit quite unlike the proper and cryptomammary suits she always wore to work. Her eyes were preternaturally large, just short of goggly, her mouth a little pink bud. She looked about seventeen but was (as I found later) nearly twenty-six. She was about five inches shorter than I was, tall for a woman, and had an athletic body (winter sports as I also learned-she was Swiss), slim of waist, with legs to the chin.

I invited her in and she made her call to building maintenance and they said they'd send a man around, but it'd be a while. She was truly stranded, since her bag with all her money and ID was locked up in Mr. Schmidt's office. She was his private secretary and was learning the international finance business. Did she like international finance? No, she thought it was silly. She could not get excited about money. One needed enough, it was horrid to be poor, but beyond that there was something not healthy about wanting ever more and more and more. It was sometimes almost wicked, she said, and cutely wrinkled her nose. She asked me what I did at the firm and I told her and added that I thought I would never make a good IP lawyer because I felt most of the cases were sort of dumb and weren't really about the true purpose of IP law, which was to make sure that the creative act was rewarded, with the better part of the money going to the actual creator. Unfortunately this was, I informed her, hardly the rule; rather the opposite was in fact the case. Well, said she, you must fix that.

And she said it with such confidence-first, a.s.suming such a fix was possible, and second, a.s.suming I was the man for the task-that I was amazed. Perhaps I gaped. She smiled: light filled the dreary room and the dreary place in my head. I felt an unfamiliar shock. To recover, I asked her if she was ever really wicked herself. She said she tried to be, because everyone said it was such fun, but it was not fun at all, more sick-making than anything else, and she hated to be poked by men she didn't know.

Poked? I questioned the word. A little idiomatic slip; she meant pawed. In any case, this is what had drawn her from stuffy old Zurich to naughty New York. Her family was devoutly Catholic and so was she, she supposed, but she craved a little more zing in her life. Is that right? Zing?

It was, I a.s.sured her. And I informed her that today was her lucky day, because I was certainly among the wickedest men in New York and I would be pleased to take her among the depraved in their fleshpots, to provide zing but no poking. Unless she desired it, which was, of course, my wicked plan, but I did not voice this then. Her eyes lit up and again that smile. Waves of goodness broke upon my bitter brow.

Thus began my first date with Amalie. The building manager took his time getting up to the office, for which I blessed him in my heart, and we spent the interval talking about the one thing we found that (remarkable!) we had in common, which was that we were both Olympians. She had competed for Switzerland (alpine skiing) at Sapporo. And about our families, or rather about her family, which was like something out of Heidi. (Later, when she got her bag back she showed me pictures of colorfully parkaed upper-middle-cla.s.s Switzers on the slopes, in front of the chalet, eating fondue. No, a lie, none eating fondue, but they did did eat fondue, and I ate a lot of it too during our marriage.) I had not realized that there eat fondue, and I ate a lot of it too during our marriage.) I had not realized that there were were Catholic Swiss, since I a.s.sociated the tiny mountain republic with grim old Calvin, but of course there are the pope's Swiss Guards, who are really Swiss, and Amalie's mother's brother was one of them. Very Catholic Swiss, since I a.s.sociated the tiny mountain republic with grim old Calvin, but of course there are the pope's Swiss Guards, who are really Swiss, and Amalie's mother's brother was one of them. Very hoch hoch were the Pfannenstielers. And what of your family, Jake? were the Pfannenstielers. And what of your family, Jake?

Oh, what indeed? Mother dead by then, Dad "traveling," brother studying in Europe (I boasted a bit here), sister...I thought of lying, but I never can keep my lies straight (I mean in personal life; as a lawyer I am, of course, a perfectly competent fabricator), so I said my sister was Miri de Lavieu. At that time in New York you would have had to be more or less blind to not know who she was, that, or perfectly out of tune with popular culture. "The model," I added to her blank look. I asked her if she had ever heard of Cheryl Tiegs, Lauren Hutton, or Janice d.i.c.kinson. She asked me if these were also my sisters? I have never met anyone, before or since, as uninterested in celebrity. Not of this world entirely, was Amalie. I should have taken warning from this, but I did not.

Now came the guy from the building and opened her office, and after she had done some final bits of work we left. I had at that time a BMW R70 motorcycle, upon which I commuted to work in nearly all weathers. She mounted the pillion, I spun up the machine. She placed her hands lightly around my waist.

Is there anything better than riding on a powerful motorcycle with a girl clutching on behind, her thighs pressing against your hips, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s making two warm ovals against your back, which pressure you can subtly augment whenever you like by tapping a little harder on the brakes than traffic conditions require? If so I have never found it. I took her up to Union Square, where in that season there was an immense billboard covering the entire side of a building showing an ad for a liquor that featured a blond woman in a slinky black evening gown. I stopped and pointed. That's my sister, I said. Amalie laughed and pointed to another billboard, this one showing a bare-chested young fellow in jeans. My brother, she said, and laughed again. I drove on, a little deflated, but in a nice way. I had scored plenty by being my sister's brother, so l.u.s.tful are many in the city for even indirect contact with celebrities, and I was a little thrilled by the strangeness of being with someone to whom it meant nothing at all.

I bought her a meal in a Caribbean restaurant frequented by big-time guapos guapos and their molls, noisy with salsa music, and vibrational with contained violence, and then we toured various dives and music clubs, the kind with drug markets in the john and b.l.o.w. .j.o.bs available in the alley behind. I was not famous enough to get into some of them, but Miri's name and the fact that I knew a number of the bouncers from my weight-lifting avocation served to breach the velvet ropes, that and the remarkable-looking woman on my arm. She turned out to be a terrific dancer; I was not bad at the time, but she danced me into the floor. People stared at her with peculiar looks on their faces that I couldn't quite interpret-contempt, longing? The d.a.m.ned contemplating the saved, perhaps; I'm sure the same look was on my face half the time. and their molls, noisy with salsa music, and vibrational with contained violence, and then we toured various dives and music clubs, the kind with drug markets in the john and b.l.o.w. .j.o.bs available in the alley behind. I was not famous enough to get into some of them, but Miri's name and the fact that I knew a number of the bouncers from my weight-lifting avocation served to breach the velvet ropes, that and the remarkable-looking woman on my arm. She turned out to be a terrific dancer; I was not bad at the time, but she danced me into the floor. People stared at her with peculiar looks on their faces that I couldn't quite interpret-contempt, longing? The d.a.m.ned contemplating the saved, perhaps; I'm sure the same look was on my face half the time.

Long story short: I took her back to her place, a condo sublet on First off Seventy-eighth, and to my immense surprise and dismay, I got a crisp Swiss handshake and a chaste cheek kiss. Same on the second date, same on the third. After that a little light canoodling, but she would not, as we used to say, put out. She said there'd been a boy at school and she'd slept with him and he'd broken her heart and she'd realized then that she was not made like the other girls she knew, not like they showed in the films, she couldn't bear s.e.x without commitment, she didn't agree with everything the church said, but she thought it was right on that score, and had been perfectly celibate since. Waiting for Mr. Right? I asked her, and she, ignoring my irony, said yes. This colloquy took place, by the way, in the middle of an infamous club that was practically a petri dish for s.e.xually transmitted diseases.

At this time in my life, I should add, I was entertaining at least four women, all lovely, all s.e.xually available, and I can barely recall their names and faces now, so completely did Amalie take over my erotic life. And I had always been perfectly casual about allowing my girls to know I had others, it was after all the s.e.xual revolution, and I did the same with Amalie, and amazingly she said I had to stop if I wanted to keep company with her, and even more amazingly, I did. I called up my current ladies one after another and kissed them off, so to speak.

Because-and this is the whole point of this long excursion-being with Amalie was better than s.e.x. It was mystical. It was as if you could lean into a sunbeam and it could support you. Colors were brighter, music was more enticing, everything moved slowly, elegantly, like a grand entrance of ancient royalty, caressed by perfumed zephyrs. I had heard of stuff like this, but I thought it was all figures of speech. The moon did not hit my eye like a big pizza pie, but short of that, all the songs came true.

Eventually, I did seduce her, in the time-honored and honorable old way: that winter we were married, in the Liebfrauenkirche in Zurich, with her large and very proper Swiss family in attendance, banker dad and professor of linguistics mom and the six siblings, all blond and rosy-cheeked, and none of them thinking that she had carried off the prize, but everyone was as polite and correct as could be. My sister and brother came too. Miri happened to be on a fas.h.i.+on shoot in Paris and arrived with her c.o.ke-fiend Eurotrash husband, Armand Etienne Picot de Lavieu, and Paul came from his studies in Italy, so it was convenient. Maybe they would have still come had it not been, but that's something I was not sure of at the time. Dad was uninvited and absent. It was all something of a blur, actually, as I imagine weddings always are to the princ.i.p.als. The only thing I recall is Paul gripping me hard above the elbow and saying, This is a keeper, kid, don't f.u.c.k it up. And that Miri cried and, as far as I could tell, remained drug-free during the event.

We went on our honeymoon to Zermatt and stayed in the family chalet and skied. Or she skied. I mainly fell down and watched her zoom gorgeously down the pistes, and afterward partic.i.p.ated in what was then and yet remains the most terrific s.e.xual experience of my life. An o.r.g.a.s.mic calliope. She made a sound like doves, the delighted uohh uohh uohh uohh uohh uohh they produce, from almost the moment we started, and she was able to generate a nearly epileptic crescendo in which Time quite stopped, as it is supposed to do in heaven, existence without duration. Naturally, within six months, as I said, I had started sleeping around again, although I was able to keep this secret for many years, taking clever advantage of Amalie's near inability to think badly of anyone. No excuse, sir: it was evil plain and simple, evil black as night. I did f.u.c.k it up, as Paul feared, which is why he grasped my arm so tightly on my wedding day, leaving a bruise. they produce, from almost the moment we started, and she was able to generate a nearly epileptic crescendo in which Time quite stopped, as it is supposed to do in heaven, existence without duration. Naturally, within six months, as I said, I had started sleeping around again, although I was able to keep this secret for many years, taking clever advantage of Amalie's near inability to think badly of anyone. No excuse, sir: it was evil plain and simple, evil black as night. I did f.u.c.k it up, as Paul feared, which is why he grasped my arm so tightly on my wedding day, leaving a bruise.

And having ruined paradise, I have for years desired to return there (without, naturally, having to make any major changes in my spiritual state) and have nurtured a longing for a new and fresh Amalie, but this time one not quite so good, someone more along the lines of me, but not too too much like me, if you take my meaning, but with the same electricity and without the unbearable burden of guilt that I bring to relations with my wife. Which is why I have made this long excursion, to make it clear what was happening in the Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room. A fresh start, and there she was with her tiny blond braids and her Amalie-esque look, shaking my hand with the tingles goosefles.h.i.+ng up my arm. much like me, if you take my meaning, but with the same electricity and without the unbearable burden of guilt that I bring to relations with my wife. Which is why I have made this long excursion, to make it clear what was happening in the Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room. A fresh start, and there she was with her tiny blond braids and her Amalie-esque look, shaking my hand with the tingles goosefles.h.i.+ng up my arm.

I asked her what she was doing, and she pointed to a thick volume open on the desk. Something my uncle wanted me to research-family history. I gestured to chairs and we sat down. It was a library, so we had to speak softly, and since we had to, it was necessary for me to have my head closer to hers than ordinary interlocution would require. She wore a light perfume, floral.

"You're an academic too, I gather?"

"No, I work for the ministry of education in Toronto. This is more of a sideline, and to help him out."

"But he's deceased."

"Yes. I thought I could finish up the work and arrange for a posthumous publication. I think he would have liked that."

"You were close, then?"

"Yes."

"Although separated by oceans?"

"Yes." Then, somewhat impatiently, with a little wrinkle forming across her fine high forehead, "My uncle Andrew was a very important part of my life, Mr. Mishkin. My father left my mom when I was four, leaving us in a very precarious financial position. He was something of a wild boy and not at all interested in fatherhood. He's dead now, as is my mother. Uncle Andrew, meanwhile, paid for my education, had me over to England during practically every summer vacation starting at age eight and...oh, G.o.d, why am I telling you all this? I guess I haven't quite recovered from the shock of what happened to him. I'm sorry. I hadn't intended to spill my guts like that."

"It's quite all right," I said. "Losing a close relative through violence can be a devastating thing."

"You sound like you speak from experience."

"Yes," I said, but in a tone that did not encourage further queries. Changing the subject, I asked, "How long have you been in the city?"

"Toronto?"

"No, here. I'm sorry-when New Yorkers say 'the city' they always mean the island of Manhattan."

She smiled at this, our first shared smile. "Since Monday. Two days."

"In a hotel, are you?"

"Yes, the Marquis on Eighth Avenue. I was expecting to stay in Uncle Andrew's place, but there are legal complications. It's still a crime scene and they won't release any of his things, although Professor Haas very kindly let me look through his office and take some personal items."

"You're comfortable there?" Making conversation here, G.o.d knows what I was thinking, I suppose I just wanted to keep her talking, prolong the moment. Ridiculous, as I say, but in the interests of an honest tale...

She replied, "Well, to be frank, it's fairly grotty. It's supposed to be cheap, but cheap in New York is more than I can afford, especially with Canadian dollars."

"You've seen the police?"

"Yes. Yesterday. I thought I would have to identify the body like they do on TV, but that had already been done. They asked me some questions, really, pretty awful questions."

"This is their theory that he was killed as part of some gay s.e.xual ritual?"

"Yes, but my G.o.d!-and I told them this-Uncle Andrew wasn't like that at all. He made no secret of his, um, romantic orientation, but he was devoted to Ollie. He's a don at Oxford. They were like an old married couple when they were together." Her tone abruptly changed and she asked, "Do you think we can conclude our business today?"

"Our business being...?"

"Uncle Andrew's ma.n.u.script."

Oh, that! I asked her what she knew about it.

"Oh, he didn't tell me much, only that it was a Jacobean ma.n.u.script. He paid several thousand dollars for it, but he thought it might be a lot more valuable if some things checked out."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. He didn't say." Again she produced that adorable wrinkle. "And frankly I can't see that it's any business of yours. It's my property."

"Actually, Ms. Kellogg," I said, somewhat prissily, "it's the property of the estate. In order for you to claim it, you have to demonstrate both that you are who you say you are, and that you are the sole legal heiress of Andrew Bulstrode. In order for that to happen, you must produce a will and have it probated in surrogate's court for the County of New York. Only then will the executor of the will have the authority to instruct me to hand over the estate's property to you."

"Oh, gos.h.!.+ Will that take long?"

"It could. If the will is faulty or contested, it could take weeks, months, even years to settle. As in d.i.c.kens."

At this she gave a despairing cry, bit her lip, and brought her hands to her face. The clerk at the desk looked over at us disapprovingly.

"I can't wait that long," she wailed. "I could only get these few days off. I have to be back in Toronto on Monday and I can't afford to stay in a hotel. And..." Here she stopped and dropped her eyes, as we do when we are about to reveal something it's best not to reveal. Interesting, that; I thought it might be part of why she was reluctant to come to my office. I decided to push on that door.

"And...?"

"Nothing." A poor liar, I thought, observing the delicate flus.h.i.+ng below the jawline.

"Well, not not nothing, I think. You ask me to meet you in a secluded place, you keep looking up at the door, as if you expect someone to barge in, and now you seem to be concealing something. Add to that the fact that your uncle died in mysterious, even frightening circ.u.mstances, and you strike me as a woman with something of a problem. A woman who, if I may be so bold, needs..." nothing, I think. You ask me to meet you in a secluded place, you keep looking up at the door, as if you expect someone to barge in, and now you seem to be concealing something. Add to that the fact that your uncle died in mysterious, even frightening circ.u.mstances, and you strike me as a woman with something of a problem. A woman who, if I may be so bold, needs..."

"A lawyer? Are you volunteering yourself?" Suspiciously.

"Not at all. You need an estate lawyer who can help you get through probate. I am not that kind of lawyer, but my firm has some good ones. I was thinking of volunteering myself as your friend."

"You think I need a friend?"

"You tell me. I'm guessing that you were approached about this ma.n.u.script and that this approach was of a disturbing nature."

She nodded vigorously, causing her braids to wiggle. Delightful!

"Yes. I got a call just after the police called me and told me Uncle Andrew had died. It was a man with a deep voice and an accent."

"An English accent?"

"No, like Slavic or Middle Eastern. I sort of yelled at him because I was so upset, I'd just found out that Uncle Andrew had died and here was this vulture circling. I hung up and he called right back and his tone was...I mean it sounds stupid to say 'threatening' but that's what it felt like. He offered me fifty thousand Canadian for the doc.u.ments, and I told him I'd think about it. He wasn't happy with that answer, and he said something like, I forget his exact words, something like it would be better for you in every possible way to agree to these terms. It was like that line from The G.o.dfather The G.o.dfather, an offer you can't refuse, and it was so unreal, I almost giggled. Then, after I got to the Marquis, I got called again, same voice. How did they know I was there? No one at home knew where I was staying."

"No significant other?" Concealing the hopefulness.

"No. And my office has my mobile. Anyway, when I left the hotel this morning there was a car, one of those big SUVs, black, with smoked windows, parked down the block from the hotel and there was a man, a big man, with a bullet head and sungla.s.ses, leaning against it. And I looked back after I pa.s.sed him and he was looking at me with this really horrible smile and then he got into the car, and I took the bus here, and when I got to the library the car was there again."

"That's worrisome," I said.

"Yes, it is," she said after a long pause. Her voice was a trifle shaky.

"Look," I said, "let's say that the police are wrong about your uncle's death, as you suggest, and that he was murdered. Murdered for this, um, doc.u.ment. Melodramatic, yes, but such things must happen occasionally. So a.s.sume for a moment that this item is extraordinarily valuable for some reason, way more valuable than fifty grand Canadian, and that criminals have somehow learned about it and are trying to obtain it by fair means or foul. Does that make sense?"

She nodded slowly. I thought I saw her s.h.i.+ver, and I wanted to fling my arms around her, but forbore.

"Yes, in a horrible way," she replied, "but I can't imagine what it could be. I mean the value part. Uncle Andrew said he paid a few thousand for it and that's probably near what it's worth, or else why would the seller have sold it? And if for some reason it turned out to be more more valuable, why would criminals be involved?" valuable, why would criminals be involved?"

"That's the question, of course, but my sense is that it's not the doc.u.ment itself that's valuable, but what it leads to. Did your uncle tell you anything about that?"

"No. As far as I knew it was a Jacobean letter of some sort, of purely academic interest. He was really excited about it, and made a special trip to England last summer to check up on some things related to it, but he didn't imply that it had any, well, pecuniary pecuniary value. Did he tell value. Did he tell you you what it was? I mean what it might lead to." what it was? I mean what it might lead to."

"Yes, he claimed it was an actual Shakespeare autograph ma.n.u.script, but I'm afraid he might have been unduly optimistic. Later, I spoke with Mickey Haas, and he suggested that this was unlikely, and that your uncle seemed to be somewhat desperate to, as it were, recoup his fortunes."

"Yes, he was, he tended to be like that since the scandal. You know about that?"

"I'm familiar with the facts, yes. But he must have been aware of this criminal interest, since he deposited the d.a.m.ned thing with me. He must have suspected he might be attacked and wanted to preserve it from being taken. So...to continue, the first order of business would seem to be securing you personally. You clearly can't return to your grotty hotel. We could change hotels...."

"I can't afford to change hotels. It was all paid in advance anyway. Oh, G.o.d, this is turning into a nightmare...."

"...or, if I may, I have a large loft downtown. There are two bedrooms in it where my kids stay when they're on school holidays. You could have one of them. It's probably nearly as grotty as the Marquis, but free of charge. I also have a driver to take you around town. He used to be sort of a bodyguard."

"A bodyguard?" she exclaimed and then asked, "Whom did he guard?"

"Yasir Arafat, actually. But we like to keep that part quiet. I can't think of anyplace you'd be more safe." Except from me, but let that pa.s.s for the moment. Honestly, I was not thinking of that at all when I made the offer. I recalled the terror on her uncle's face quite well and did not want that look ever to appear on hers. "Once you're stashed, we can see if we can learn something about the people involved from their vehicle. I'll alert the police to this development and leave that part to them."

She agreed to this plan after the usual polite demurrers. We left the reading room and then the library. At the top of the steps I steered her into the shadow of the porch columns and peered out at Fifth Avenue. There was no black SUV with smoked windows in sight. I called Omar on my cell and told him to meet us on the Forty-second Street side and then we hurried through Bryant Park and were waiting for the Lincoln as it pulled up.

My loft is on Franklin Street off Greenwich. It's four thousand square feet in area, and the building used to be a pants factory, later a warehouse, but now it is chockablock full of rich people. I got into it before downtown real estate became psychotic, but it still set me back a bundle, and that doesn't count the improvements. We used to live here as a family, Amalie, the kids, and me, until she moved out. Usually the guy moves out, but Amalie knew I really liked this place and also she wanted to be closer to the kids' school, which is on Sixty-eighth off Lexington. They're all now on East Seventy-sixth in a brownstone duplex. We split expenses right down the middle, because she has a good income and sees no reason why I should be beggared simply because I am a s.e.xual a.s.shole.

At the time under discussion, however, I was not thinking about that. I was showing Amalie 2 (aka Miranda Kellogg) around my dwelling. She was suitably impressed, which I found an improvement over Amalie 1, who was never impressed by things money could buy. I ordered Chinese takeout and we ate by candles at a low table I have from which you get a nice, if narrow, view of the river. I was a gentleman, and reasonably honest as we ate and exchanged histories. It turned out she was a child psychologist by training, working as a midlevel bureaucrat. We talked about Niko, my boy, and his problems. She was sympathetic in a rather distant way. As I became more familiar with her face, I decided that she did not resemble Amalie quite as much as I had originally thought, not feature by feature, but still there was that feeling of bubbling excitement when I looked at her. How little we know, how much to discover, from lover to lover, as the song has it.

She began to yawn, and perfectly proper, I made up the bed in Imogen's room. I gave her a new white T-s.h.i.+rt to sleep in, and of course I had fresh toothbrushes because of my kids. I got sleepy thanks and a nice kiss on the cheek. What was that perfume? Elusive, but familiar.

The next day, we rose early, breakfasted on coffee and croissants, in a mood that was more companionable, I must admit, than it would have been had this been a Morning After. She had a certain distancing air about her that did not encourage aggressive intimacy seeking, which was fine with me: another reminder of Amalie back when. She dressed in the same little department-store wool suit she had worn the previous day, and Omar took us up to my office. Once there, I introduced her to Jasmine Ping, our brilliant estate lawyer, and left them to plumb the mysteries of probate and also help arrange for the transfer of Bulstrode's body back to England.

My diary tells me I spent the morning dissuading a writer from suing another writer for stealing her ideas and from them producing a far more successful book than the writer's own, and later on the phone with a fellow at the U.S. Trade Representative setting up a meeting about (what else?) Chinese IP pirates. A typical morning. At twelve-thirty or so Miranda appeared up at my office and I suggested lunch. She refused, I insisted, at which she shamefacedly admitted that she was still too frightened to wander freely in public and wished to eat in the office or be driven back to the loft.

We therefore ordered from a deli, and while we were waiting, Miranda broached the subject of the ma.n.u.script. She said that under her uncle's tutelage she'd become an efficient reader of Jacobean secretary hand: could she not look at it now? I hesitated but saw no real objection. Heirs often make independent judgments on the value of prospective inheritables. I sent Ms. M. down to the vault.

While we were waiting our lunch arrived and we ate, sitting at my gla.s.s coffee table. She was a precise eater, tiny bites. We talked about IP and her uncle's visit here, but she had no more idea about why he wanted or needed an IP lawyer than I did. Ms. Maldonado came back with the folder.

Miranda pulled on cotton gloves before she handled the stiff brown pages. She held several up to the window to examine watermarks. But the day had gone dark, with the beginnings of a spattering rain. She had to use the desk lamp instead.

"Interesting," she said, and again as she pa.s.sed the pages before the light. "This heavier paper is what they call a crown folio sheet, marked with the coat of arms of Amsterdam, which comes from a well-known paper house and quite common in the seventeenth century. The pages look like they were ripped out of a ledger. These other sheets seem to be printer's copy and unrelated." She mentioned the name of a paper maker, but I have forgotten what it was, and then she discoursed briefly about the provenance of paper. In one ear and out the other. She drew a folding magnifying gla.s.s from her handbag. "Do you mind?" she asked.

I did not. I was content to watch her. She studied the pages; I studied the swan of her neck bobbing above them and the tendrils of hair that moved delicately in the faint breeze from the heating system. Time pa.s.sed. I doodled at some paperwork, without enthusiasm. The noises of the office outside my door seemed to come from another world. She read four pages. From time to time she would mutter. Then she positively gasped.

"What?"

"The writer of this thing, Richard Bracegirdle-he claims to have sailed with Somers. He was on the wreck of the Sea Adventure Sea Adventure. Oh, G.o.d! My hands are shaking."

I asked what was handshakingly important about it.

"Because it was a famous event. The governor of the Virginia colony was aboard. They were wrecked on Bermuda and they lived off the land and built a s.h.i.+p and got back to Virginia. Some of them wrote accounts of it, and we believe that Shakespeare used them to create the atmosphere of Prospero's island in The Tempest The Tempest. But if this guy knew Shakespeare in 1610 as he claims...I mean he might have been with him, feeding him tropical color while he was writing. This alone makes it...look, Mr. Mishkin..."

"Please, you're a guest in my house. I wish you'd call me Jake."