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She gasped, but kept her eyes closed, and he knew she was seeing something. Her fingers trembled a bit.

“No,” she cried out, startling him with the desperation in her tone. Then her eyes flicked open. “It ended too soon.”

“What did you see?”

“I saw someone writing this note. A man’s hand. Ink pen, paper, a desktop.” A tremor seemed to run through her, and she shuddered. “And I felt…that darkness, as I did with the pendant in Hardy’s office. That grasping, predatory hunger.”

Gideon approached and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“What did the desktop look like?” he asked softly.

“A black blotter. Dark wood underneath. Perhaps mahogany. I couldn’t see much else. A stack of books on the blotter. I saw two volumes marked Works of Virgil. I saw the names Marcus Aurelius and Julius Caesar on the spines of other books.”

“A learned man, then?”

“The desk was cluttered with other pieces of paper, but I could see nothing written on them. I tried to see the room, tried to look up, but I could see nothing but paper and this note being written.”

Gideon wished he could see what Electra had so that they could examine it together.

“Nothing distinguishing about the man’s hand?” He had seen a scar on Nicholas Frye’s hand near his thumb.

“No.”

“Could it have been the hand that you saw giving a calling card to Aurora Fretwell?”

“Possibly.” Electra did not sound certain. “I didn’t see anything to differentiate the two.”

“Clothing?”

“A white shirt sleeve. Nothing notable.”

“Cuff links?”

“They were gold or brass. A simple stud. I did not note anything unusual about them.”

“Anything unique about the pen he held?”

Electra’s shoulders slumped and she sighed wearily. “No. Your average black nib pen. A pot of ink. Oh, and there was a magnifying glass on the desktop, just lying flat.”

“Any other letters that you could see?”

“No. All the other paper was blank.”

“Could it have been Tristan Wakefield?” Gideon had the impression he was a learned man who might read the likes of Virgil.

“I don’t think so.” Electra shook her head.

“Why?”

“He wears a signet ring on his right-hand ring finger. I noted it last night. When I saw this person’s hand, I didn’t notice any rings.” Now that she mentioned it, he recalled the glint of the man’s ring as he’d gestured, protesting his innocence.

Gideon sensed Electra’s frustration as she twisted her hands together in her lap.

A few moments later, she turned to him. “Gideon, the statues in front of the Delacourts’ house. Those books were Roman history, yes?”

“Caesar, Aurelius, yes.”

“Could those statues have been a Roman god and goddesses?”