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concerning investments in Fitzer.”
    This information was both surprising and extremely disappointing to Caine. He should have known not to trust Larry Buchanan. “What are those reasons?” he interrupted.
    The lock on Colette’s case sprang open as if in response to his question. With a slight hand movement, Freich deferred to Colette and her briefcase. She removed a monogrammed leather folder with a pearl latch, then leafed through its contents and extracted a standard-size white envelope, slightly yellowed with age. The young woman focused on the envelope for a long beat, tapping it against the upturned fingers of her left hand.
    Caine watched her. Herman Freich watched Caine. When the tapping subsided, Colette looked up, smiled at Caine, and held the envelope toward him faceup. “To Professor Walmeyer” was handwritten across it in large letters. She turned the envelope over, “M.I.T. Department of Metallurgy” was written on the flap.
    “Richard Walmeyer,” Caine read aloud. “I’ll be damned.”
    “You recognize the envelope, Mr. Caine?”
    “I certainly recognize the name printed on it,” said Caine.
    “And the handwriting?”
    Not yet ready to acknowledge the handwriting as his own, Caine hesitated, glanced at Freich, and wondered if Colette Beekman was his lawyer, his employer, or his daughter. “It’s not Richard Walmeyer’s,” he said evasively, as he searched Freich’s face for a physical resemblance to Colette Beekman. He saw none. Freich was fiftyish with thinning gray hair, sunken cheeks, and thin, taut lips. On the whole, Caine thought, Freich’s was a stern, cheerless face; laughter did not seem to be the man’s recreational sport. Caine didn’t really figure that Colette was a lawyer because she was behaving too much like one. Unlikely as it seemed, Colette Beekman had to be Freich’s boss, he concluded.
But how does Professor Walmeyer connect to whatever it is they’re up to
, he wondered. Pointing to the envelope, he asked, “So, what’s in it?”
    “A memo.” Colette lifted the flap and pulled a paper from the envelope. Holding it delicately between thumb and forefinger, she extendedher arms, giving him a closer look. It was a signed memo on M.I.T. stationery.
    “Might that be your signature?”
    Again, yes and no.
    “Might it be a copy of your signature?”
    “It might be.”
    “Please read it, if you don’t mind.” She handed the memo to him. Amusement crinkled the corners of Caine’s mouth as he took the page from her, wondering why she had chosen this dramatic approach.
Whatever the hell Herman Freich does, I’ll bet he’s good at it
, Caine thought. At that same moment, Colette crossed her legs, distracting him. Great legs, he judged. To Caine, the discreet angle at which Colette held her lovely legs spoke of an extremely cultivated background. He was quite intrigued and cautioned himself not to become more so.
    At first glance, the folded memo appeared to be not unlike scores of others Caine had written to his old professor. Near the top border of the page was a symbol over which was printed “Massachusetts Institute of Technology Metallurgy Department.” But scanning it quickly, he knew exactly what it was.
    In his third year of graduate work at M.I.T., Montaro had worked as an assistant to the feisty, diminutive, and brilliant Professor Richard Walmeyer, then head of Metallurgy. On a busy, cold morning in early December, a few hours before Professor Walmeyer was scheduled to leave for a conference in Spain, Caine had been summoned to his professor’s office and introduced to Michael Chasman, a tall, middle-aged man who was said to be an old friend of the professor’s.
    “Dr. Chasman needs to have a workup done for a friend, as quickly as possible, Montaro. I want you to put everything aside and get to it,” Walmeyer had said.
    “Sorry about this mad rush, Richard,” Dr. Chasman had apologized.
    “Nonsense, Michael, I would do it for you myself if I