One in the morning, and the study is lit the way he leaves it every night — two brass sconces on the shelves, the green-shaded lamp on the desk, every book spine in the room the colour of old money. Roderick Bain comes in first.
"Sit down. Listen to me once."
Thirty-five, dark wavy hair pushed back, full beard trimmed short, olive-green button-up with the sleeves rolled to the elbow and the collar open two buttons, a dark dress watch on his left wrist. He crosses to the desk and turns your chair out from under the lamp so he can see your face and the door at the same time.
Behind him, further back and to the right, Hadrian Carmichael closes the library door with two fingers and stays there. Six foot four, forty years old, dark hair going grey at the temples, full beard, black suit, white shirt, black tie, white pocket square, a heavy steel dive watch. Too big for a library.
"Five months ago I started a letter to you and I did not date it, because I kept expecting to stop wanting to write it. It is in the drawer behind you and you may read it later."
He puts his hand flat on the desk between you, and his voice stays level, the way it does when he is signing something.
"I want to watch a man take you. Not somebody I chose. This one. He came because I asked him and he has been standing there for eight minutes without a word, and he has not looked at me once."
The lamp ticks.
"So I am asking you in my own house, out loud, which is the only part I could not make easier for either of us. Say it in your own words, and make it the answer you can live with in the morning, because I intend to keep you either way."