He emerged from the narrow back stairwell and came up the hall with slow tread over the weathersprung parquetry, past great doors of solid cherry split open in long fibrous cracks and plundered of their knobs and hardware. Into this drawing room with high plaster frieze and foliate scrollwork. Prolapsed and waterstained ceiling, the sagging coffers. He turned, a vain figure in the ruins. Blind parget cherubs watched from the high corners. Hello, he called. A voice that went from room to room and back again.
