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center of the room and lifted his arms, drawing everyone’s attention to himself. “Ladies and gentlemen. Remain where you are. Officer Greenblatt has gone to investigate. Charlene, why don’t you stand at the bottom of the stairs, and ensure no one else goes up?”
    Louise Jane was with Mrs. Fitzgerald, second in command on the library board, close to the back staircase. She waved an empty glass in the air, explaining that she didn’t mean the assistant-librarian job should be
eliminated
. Only that it should be given to her. Andrew hovered at her elbow, his head bobbing like a PEZ dispenser. Daffy Duck, perhaps. In a quiet area beneath the curve of stairs, Mrs. Uppiton had cornered one of the few unaccompanied men at the party. She was batting her overly made-up eyelashes at him while he leered down the front of her dress.
    I glanced at the Austen collection as I darted past. Everything appeared as it should.
    The back stairs don’t go all the way to the top of the lighthouse. They end in a small round room that’s not open to the general public, where we keep the oldest and rarest of our collection for viewing by appointment. That room would be where Bertie waslikely to keep the surprise she’d been planning to unveil at eight o’clock.
    Like the main lighthouse stairs, these are spiral and made of black iron, curving around and around, leading up into the darkness. I could see the bottoms of Butch’s shoes above me and could hear the pounding of Connor’s feet below.
    I burst into the rare-books room. The walls were lined with old bookshelves. There was no window at this level, so no danger of sunlight touching the papers. The center of the room was filled by a gorgeous antique secretary, the warm, aged oak polished to a brilliant gloss, with a high back of pigeonholes and multiple drawers. A tall, modern desk lamp, now switched off, stood nearby for close examination of old handwriting or worn and fading print. The single yellow bulb in the ceiling cast a weak light that did not reach the corners. Not that the room, being round, had many corners.
    The secretary’s drawers were closed, but the desktop stood open, propped up by the sliders on either side. It held a single book, no more than four inches square and an inch thick. A notebook, leather cover worn and faded with the passage of many years and many hands. I’d never seen it before.
    I paid it little attention now.
    Mr. Uppiton lay in the center of the room, on his stomach, his arms outstretched. A puddle of dark liquid spread out from his upper body, and the unexpected scent of beer filled the air. He was very still. His right hand appeared to be reaching toward the massive book next to him, which lay faceup, open to a page showing an eighteenth-century map of theNew England coast. Butch crouched over him, fingers to Mr. Uppiton’s neck.
    Before I could stop myself, I took a step forward, intending to pick up the book and check its spine for damage. Shards of glass were scattered on the floor, sparkling in what little light there was.
    “Stay back,” Butch said, his voice not light and flirty as it had been only moments ago, but full of cool authority. “Connor, call nine-one-one. We’ll need police and an ambulance. Although the ambulance needn’t hurry. He’s dead.”
    I sucked in a breath.
    Butch rose slowly to his feet. Connor left the room to make the call. These walls were made of solid stone, many feet thick in places. Cell phone reception was spotty to nonexistent. Only as I watched him go did I notice Bertie, standing against the far wall in the dark shadow between two bookshelves.
    She was holding something in both hands. The neck of a broken bottle. Her hands opened and the bottle fell to the floor with a crash.
    None of us said anything for a long time.
    Then Butch took one step toward her. “Albertina James,” he said. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Jonathan Uppiton.”
    She said nothing, looked at him through wide,