Lockhart gives his assent, then sends me a quelling look. “Mr. Howard, if you’d be so good as to wait in the quiet corner?” he asks. It’s an order disguised as a request. I stand up and shuffle over to the corner and stand facing the wall. All the sounds from behind me are abruptly muffled, as if a great distance away. Most of our meeting rooms are fitted with these cones of silence, for just this sort of situation:
