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step back, unaccosted, unafraid. In the lamplight their eyes met: she was calm.
     
     
    The Belgian police
judiciaire
did not identify Dennis Clymer’s body for nearly three weeks, and only then because of a birthmark under his left arm. His head and hands were never found.
     
     
     

CHAPTER 6
     
     
    When Mara Song arrived at Strand’s house the next morning, Meret went to the front door to answer the bell. Strand was finishing a letter when he heard their voices. Through the windows near his desk he saw them coming out of the central hallway into the peristyle. Mara was carrying a single large portfolio, and Meret was leading her around to the library door.
    Strand stood and walked into the library, meeting them at the door just as Meret was pushing it open. Her face turned away from Mara, she flashed a sly smile at him. She excused herself and retreated to her office.
    Mara Song’s hair was pulled back and knotted behind her neck, and she was wearing a loosely cut linen shirt tucked into tailored linen trousers. Her smile was relaxed.
    “Beautiful place,” she said, looking around the library as she laid her portfolio on the library table. “Would you mind showing me around a bit? Have you got time?”
    “Sure,” he said.
    Though she was careful not to be too intrusive, Mara was nevertheless very interested in everything having to do with the house. She asked about its history, how long Strand had lived here, whether the garden was already designed as it was now. She asked about the furniture, much of which Strand and Romy had bought in antique shops in Europe, and she asked about his own collection of drawings, where he had bought them, and why.
    Strand watched her as he talked. She was as curious about him now as he had been about her, but she was far less reserved in satisfying her curiosity. With every exchange in their conversation he learned as much about her as she did of him. She was proving to be complex, though he was reasonably sure that she would not have characterized herself in that way. He was slowly beginning to suspect that Mara Song’s personality was like the clear, bright sliver of the new moon: what you saw was stunning, but by far the greater part of it was hidden in shadow and would emerge only slowly.
    In a little while they came full circle to the library. They sat at the long table, both on the same side, and Mara opened the portfolio and took out a folder.
    “I think I can help you a little and save you some time on the appraisal,” she began, laying out several sheets of paper with densely typed lines. “I have a fair amount of data on the provenance of each drawing.”
    She put the pages between them, then began going through her documentation beginning with the Klimt drawing, citing its catalog references, a history of its sales, and a brief description of the work, whether it was a fully executed drawing or a study for a later work.
    When she finished, she sat back and tucked a loose bit of hair behind an ear. “It’s a beginning, anyway,” she said.
    “It’s more than that.” Strand was still looking at the last document. “You’ve saved me a lot of work. I appreciate it.”
    “The truth is,” she said, “I was afraid of getting ripped off. I’d never paid that kind of money for anything before in my life. It made me uncharacteristically thorough.”
    Strand was skeptical about this last remark. He was quite sure that Mara was, in fact, a very methodical woman.
    He paged through the portfolio, looking at the seven drawings once again. They were superb, all of them, each in its own special way.
    “This last one,” he said, “Delvaux’s
Réticence.
He’s a different kind of draftsman from the others. What were your thoughts behind this purchase?”
    She smiled as if he had caught her in a deception.
    “It was the most spontaneous purchase of them all,” she said almost reluctantly. She mused on the drawing. “Delvaux tended to simplify his technique, which