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father.
    A loud screech issued, high above our heads. I'd heard the same sound twice before, the lifting of a sticky window sash. We shot our gazes up to the top floor, where a flickering dot of candlelight levitated about a foot beyond the wall of the mansion. Noah Langley's reedy voice called down through the darkness.
    “Trenowyth? Is that you?”
    “Yes, of course.” The cats quieted as if to listen.
    “It sounds like you, but I can't be sure until you say some more.”
    “Come now, Noah. Who else but me would know the system of communication we've worked out?”
    “Quite right, quite right. I confess I'm a bit jumpy these days. A week or so ago a burglar broke into my home.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Positively. I was reading Elizabeth to sleep when we heard one of the boarded up windows on the second floor being splintered to pieces. We heard voices outside too. One of the burglars—but perhaps they were only neighborhood vandals, I don't really know—got inside and tripped a booby trap of mine before retreating.”
    Booby trap ? “I am sorry to hear about the intrusion.”
    “At least he left empty handed. Not to mention a little worse for wear.” He cackled once with pleasure or self-satisfaction.
    “Did you report the incident?”
    “Yes, to Patrolman Cox, who walks this neighborhood. Though I couldn't give him much to go on, because I hadn't seen the intruder myself, just heard him squeal.”
    “I am not alone, Noah. With me are two representatives from New York Edison, the gas and electric company.” Miss Buxton, I decided, could make her own introduction. “They are here on official business.”
    “They have no business on this property, official or otherwise, as we no longer make use of their services.”
    “Which is precisely why they have come to collect their gas and electric meters.”
    “What? Repeat that last bit, please, I don't think I quite heard you.”
    Noah was a touch deaf when he wished to be, a stalling tactic more often than a symptom of old age. I repeated myself at a louder volume.
    “Out of the question,” he responded this time. “Those meters belong to us, as does everything else in this household. I imagine they were purchased by my father at some point, perhaps as long ago as the eighteen eighties.”
    “Actually, it's New York Edison who owns the meters. Every last one in the city.”
    “I say differently. If you would allow me time to search for the sales receipt—”
    “Paying customers rent the meters, in effect, and ex-customers are obligated to return them upon request. You haven't any use for the meters at any rate. None whatsoever. And—”
    “I might think of some use one day.”
    “And I've been presented with a court order.”
    “Come to think of it, I often hang my hat on one or the other of those meters when I'm at my workshop in the basement.”
    “A court order, you understand.”
    “What was that? You'll have to repeat yourself, I didn't quite catch—”
    “A court order. Signed by a judge. Granting New York Edison access to your home to retrieve their rightful property. You must let these men inside or you will be held in contempt.”
    A long pause. Then: “I think not.”
    I sighed. “Come, Noah. Do you wish another horrid spectacle of the kind we'd witnessed together two weeks ago? With the police and fire departments battering down your front door and scaling the walls of your home? With great crowds of onlookers? And more newspaper articles being written—”
    “Lies! Inaccuracies! Rubbish!” Noah would recover old newspapers from city trash bins to read to his blind sister and to bundle later for—well, only Heaven and he ever really knew what for. The stories to which he alluded were a week old or more by now, yet it seemed likely that he'd only just read them, given the sharp arrows of umbrage hurtling down upon our heads. “Has any one man ever been so persecuted? At any rate, what business has anyone in how we live our