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The woman behind the desk had an easy ave hi his staot a signal right away His first call was to Julia, just to let her know he’d survived a couple of hours in the air She didn’t offer to put Jenny on, nor did he ask He orking, and that part of his life could wait until the job was done

He , who ih for two, she said, if he hadn’t eaten He said he was tired, which was true enough, and that it would be better to start fresh in the ave hireed that he’d show up around nine thirty or ten

He ate across the street, at a family restaurant that proclaimed itself locally owned and operated He had shrimp in a basket, which didn’t strike hilass of iced tea The lass was plenty

Back in his room, he took a shower and decided his shave could wait until ot what seemed to be an infinite number of channels He put on CNN while he booted up his laptop and checked his email No e off and went to bed

Ten hours later he was eating breakfast down the street at Denny’s An hour and a half after that he was looking at sta that struck Keller, when Denia Soderling showed hined a better room for a stamp collector Walls paneled in knotty cedar, half a dozen rifles and shotguns in a glass-fronted cabinet, a pair of swords crossed on one wall, a ht A pictureopened onto a rail-fenced paddock, where a pair of horses as wellsun And thefaced north, Keller saw, so the sun wouldn’t come into the roolass-fronted bookcases held books unrelated to sta with a dictionary of quotations and a few volumes of poetry The other case contained the owner’s philatelic library There was a full set of the Scott catalogs, each volus as well, Michel and Yvert and Gibbons and more And the shelves were filled with books and pamphlets on one stamp-related subject or another The majority dealt with European nations and their colonies, but Keller spotted Michael Laurence’s study of the ten-cent covers of 1869 He’d alh he didn’t collect US issues and had no real interest in the subject J S Soderling had evidently had the sa Keller realized, and he did so even as he was looking around and taking everything in, was that it shouldn’t have been necessary for his to a roo coals to Newcastle

He confirmed this when he opened the bookcases where the stamp albums were housed One shelf held the tools of the well-equipped philatelist, and Soderling had equipped hinifiers and wateruillotine-style ly, an even dozen pairs of tongs There were tongs with pointed tips, with blunt tips, with spade-shaped tips, with rounded tips There were tongs with angled tips, for getting at otherwise inaccessible staled in the middle, which no doubt made theh Keller couldn’t think what it ht be

And then there were the staal and Colonies, Italy and Colonies, Germany and Colonies Russia Eastern Europe No US that he could see, and no British Empire, and no Latin America, either No Asia or Africa, aside from the colonial issues But all of continental Europe was there, from Iceland and Denmark clear across to Russia and Turkey, and the albue bookcases Most of them were from the Scott Specialized series, but there were leather-bound stock books as well, and blank albu said, and Keller was surprised to realize she was in the rooether, but he’d been so transported by the room and its contents that he’d lost track of her But there she was, a tall and slender woray in her dark hair

"It’s quite a room," Keller said

"Jeb loved it If he wasn’t at the desk working on his sta about some battle in the Thirty Years’ War Or the Hundred Years’ War, I’ht"

"One was longer"

"Once a war lasts thirty years," she said, "I can’t see that another seventy would make much of a difference I can’t tell you how many times I’ve co in, and I can’t make myself stay for more than a few minutes Do you knohat I mean?"

He nodded

"I tried to look at the staAnd of course there were all those letters fro, all of it"

"I can i to want to spend so, aren’t you? And you don’t needover your shoulder, and frankly I’d just as soon not spend any o out and ride for an hour I try to ride every day I think it’s good for ood for the horses"

Keller voiced his agree with Her words had washed over hiood for the horses, and it seemed safe to be in favor of it

He carried the first volual and Colonies to the desk and opened it

At one point the door opened, although he never heard it Then she was at his side, announcing that she’d brought him a cup of coffee It was black, she said, but if he took creaar--

He told her black was fine She told him to let her knohen he was ready for a lunch break, and he said he would

She withdrew, leaving the coffee where he could reach it but far enough away so he’d be unlikely to knock it over Well, she’d probably brought coffee to her husband in similar circumstances She’d had plenty of time to work out just where to put the cup

And coffee was just the ticket He could use a cup of coffee, no question about it

First, though--

By the time he reached for the coffee, it was cold

"Are you sure you won’t have another sandwich, Mr Edwards?"