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discovered that they had killed each other. Simultaneous head wounds. The senseless horror of the event upset the town. In response, Father Garland told us one of his parables about a man born with two heads, only one mouth, and a shared eye, but this did little to explain the tragedy for me. The Physiognomy, on the other hand, has a way of dismantling the terrible mystery of humanity.”
    I reviewed my findings on her breasts. “And what do you see when you look in the mirror?” I asked.
    â€œA species striving for perfection,” she said.
    â€œI love an optimist,” I told her. She smiled at me, and I was forced to turn away. To my surprise, facing me was her grandfather, newly nestled in the corner of the room. The sight of him nearly made me jump, but I controlled the impulse. “What do you think of your grandfather, that ill-figured boulder there?”
    â€œNothing,” she said.
    I turned to look at her, and she was staring peacefully at the old blue man. “I may have to do some chiseling during my analysis,” I told her.
    â€œI’d be honored to help in excavating that head,” she said.
    â€œWhat might we find?” I asked.
    â€œThe journey to Paradise,” she said. “It’s there. He told it to me when I was a young child. Sometimes a moment of the story will come back to me all in a flash and then, a minute later, I will have forgotten it. It’s there, encased in spire rock.”
    â€œI suppose we will find a white fruit at the center of his brain,” I said.
    â€œOr a cavern,” she said.
    I acquiesced with a smile and quickly asked, “Who is the thief?”
    She uncrossed her legs, and I pulled up a chair. Leaning forward, as if in the strictest confidence, she whispered, “Everyone thinks Morgan took it and fed it to his daughter, Alice.”
    â€œWhy?” I asked, leaning close enough to smell her perfume.
    â€œThe child is different now,” she said, pursing her lips, her eyelids descending.
    â€œDoes she fly?” I asked.
    â€œPeople say she now has all the right answers.”
    I took out a cigarette and lit it as a means of changing the subject. “Have you recently been in contact with any members of the opposite sex?” I asked, staring directly into her eyes.
    â€œNever, your honor,” she said.
    â€œDo you have any aversion to the naked human form?” I asked.
    â€œNone at all,” she said, and for a moment I thought she smiled.
    â€œDoes the sight of blood or suffering bother you?”
    She shook her head.
    â€œAre either of your parents dimwitted?”
    â€œTo some extent, but they are simple, kind people.”
    â€œYou must do whatever I say,” I told her.
    â€œI fully understand,” she said, moving her head suddenly so that her hair flipped back over her shoulder.
    I couldn’t help myself and leaned over to measure the distance from her top lip to the center of her forehead with my thumb and forefinger. Even without the chrome exactitude of my instruments, I knew she was a Star Five—an appellation reserved for those whose features reside at the pinnacle of the physiognomical hierarchy. It sickened and excited me to know that if not for the fact that she was female, she would have been my equal.
    When I pulled my hand away, she said, “Star Five.”
    â€œProve it,” I said.
    â€œI will,” she said.
    We left the hotel, and as we proceeded up the street toward the church, I asked her to recall for me the essence of the renowned Barlow case. She hurried along beside me, her hair twisting in the wind, as she recited from memory exact facial measurements I had made myself ten years earlier on an obscure doctor who had flatly denied having written subversive poetry.
    To be candid, Arla Beaton reminded me of my first love, and I knew she would mean nothing but trouble for me. Involving a woman in the official business of the realm was