One Coffee With

"Come to question the grieving widow?" asked Nauman sardonically when he had recognized her.

"Yes. Is she in?"

Nauman leaned against the door frame to consider her question. His face was shadowed, but light gleamed through his white hair and haloed his head in silver.

"Technically she's in; metaphysically she's out," he said at last.

"The technical side will be sufficient," she said coldly and started to pass him.

She was blocked by a surprisingly strong arm, and his keen blue eyes were amused at her sudden irritation. Sigrid glared back at him, and he dropped his arm to herald her entrance with a sweeping flourish of his tall lean body.

"Up the stairs and first door to your left," he called after her. "Don't say you weren't warned."

Unreasonably a

As a child, she had been dutifully marched around the city's great museums, shifting from one leg to other as her mother lectured on the aesthetic quality of one interminable picture after another. Only the portraits had held her attention, and she particularly like the drawings and illuminated manuscripts at the Morgan Library. Still lifes and landscapes, if not too fulsome, had also been acceptable. But whenever A

The rest of the upper hall was in darkness except for a sliver of light beneath the first door. Sigrid tapped softly, and at her slight pressure the door slid open upon an injudicious blend of Parisian bordello and American 'sweet sixteen'.

Sigrid's first stu

The bed, an extravaganza in beknobbed and curlicued brass, had a curved tester and dust ruffles of lace-edged organza. The puffed silk coverlet repeated the wallpaper's overblown roses, and it, too was edged in white lace, as were the pillows.

In the midst of this froth of white lace Sigrid recognized Piers Leyden's muscular form as he struggled with a woman's inert body.

"Ah, the hell with it!" she heard him mutter. Then he heaved himself upright and staggered over to collapse on the chaise longue.

"Professor Leydon?" she asked hesitantly.

He smiled up at her without really focusing, turned over and buried his curly black head in the velvet cushions. "All classes are canceled," he a

From the direction of the bed rose a muffled snore. Sigrid tiptoed over, nearly tripping on the thick rug. It was like walking on marshmallows.

Doris Qui

If she spent the entire night with her head and arms so constricted by that slip, Sigrid reflected, Mrs. Qui

With the slip removed from her head, Doris Qui

Irritably she turned down the covers and rolled Doris Qui

On the landing she paused again to glare at that offensive black painting. What on earth had impelled Qui

But even as she frowned at the picture, she became aware of hidden depths beneath its smooth surface. The longer she stared, the more there was to see. Instead of being one shade of matte black, the painting was actually a harmonious blend of transparent blacks and browns; and each subtle tonal difference assumed a different geometric form, the shapes seeming to float in a dark void, shifting and realigning to form a rich angular pattern.

She looked away, and the canvas resumed its blank surface. She concentrated, and again veiled complexities revealed themselves. Sigrid was obscurely pleased by its elusive beauty and came downstairs in a much better humor than when she'd gone up.

Her crossness returned, though, when she stepped out into the cool spring evening and found Oscar Nauman lounging against her car, a cold pipe clenched between his teeth.

"I thought you'd gone."

"How the hell could I go?" His crossness matched hers. "One of your damned cohorts towed my car away again."

"And there are no taxis?" she inquired sweetly.

"Be my guest," he offered, sourly gesturing toward the busy avenue.

Feeling vastly superior, Sigrid walked the few steps to the corner, stepped to the curb edge beneath a streetlight and signaled an oncoming cab. It ignored her. As did the next two. The following four were either occupied or displayed off-duty signs.

A

"Oh, dear! Oh, I'm so sorry!" apologized the owner, a plump little man in a tweed jacket with leather patches at the elbows, who bustled up to collect the bouncing animal. "Heel, Mischief! Heel, I say! It's the whistle, you see," he told Sigrid in a clipped English accent. "She blows it-sit, Miss! My daughter, I mean. It's her signal-sit you naughty dog-when it's time for a romp. For the dog I mean. Come along, Mischief. No, that's not Sally. That's a strange lady."