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appearance of the room told me it must have been violent. He had probably knocked the heavy chair over when he fell, and when his body hit the rug, the tremor caused a log to roll off the hearth, starting the fire. I shuddered, picturing an old man lyingamid smoke and flames, helpless, unable to save himself. I hoped he was dead before the fire got to him.
    The professor must have hurled the books to the floor before he fell. Why? What had sparked the kind of rage that made a scholar throw his books around and wreck his own room? Had his anger brought on the fit that killed him? Or had it been panic rather than fury? Had he been searching desperately for something before the seizure came?
    The atmosphere of the place was oppressive and vaguely threatening, despite the sunlight streaming through the windows. The heavy air stank from the damp ash and charred logs in the fireplace. The odour of smoke clung to the window curtains. Against my will, I imagined the professor sprawled before the hearth, dying as the rug smouldered around him. Were his sudden attack and the damage to the library the causes of the uneasiness that seeped into me like cold water? Why was I weighed down by the impression that the room didn’t want me there?
    Unconsciously, I shrank back. Then I swallowed, took a deep breath, and reminded myself that I was there for a reason. I had work to do.
    I took a slow tour of the room, moving instinctively away from the fireplace and toward the windows on the south side. To the right of the door was an escritoire with an ancient, clunky-looking black Underwood typewriter on top, along with a small brass lamp and an old-fashioned straight pen and inkwell. A chair was tucked under the desk, and a low filing cabinet stood to one side. There was no computer or printer, not even a telephone.
    Trestle tables had been placed along the south and east walls, leaving room to walk between them and the bookshelves.Set into the northeast corner, where most of the displaced books lay scattered on the floor around a square oak table lying on its side, was an alcove with a small cupboard built into the shelves.
    I was anxious to get out of there, but I forced myself to calm down and think. I returned to the fireplace and sat in the upright club chair. Mrs. Stoppini had described two jobs—inventory and repair—as part of the deal. The first would be mostly a catalogue of the books in the room—the contents of the escritoire and cupboard shouldn’t take more than a day. I counted the volumes on one shelf, then multiplied by the number of shelves, which, not including the alcove, were pretty much the same length throughout the room. Well over four thousand books—a huge, time-consuming, and phenomenally boring job. But possibly simple, depending on how much detail Mrs. Stoppini wanted catalogued. A list of titles, or titles with authors’ names, was easiest because these were printed on the books’ spines. I wouldn’t have to take the books down from the shelves.
    But if Mrs. Stoppini required copyright date, publisher, and edition—the kind of information Dad noted carefully whenever he found an old volume that might be worth something—then every single book would have to be examined. A forever job. I’d be as old as Mrs. Stoppini, and probably just as eccentric, before I finished. I made a mental note to find out exactly what she needed before I committed myself. It seemed strange that an academic wouldn’t keep a catalogue of his own books, though. Maybe I’d find one somewhere and knock off one of Mrs. Stoppini’s tasks right away.
    Feeling more optimistic, I got up and examined the shelves to the left and right of the mantel, looking for signsof heat damage. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was intruding into something that had nothing to do with me, and that I was being watched. I forced myself to concentrate.
    The shelves seemed unharmed, but they’d need to be cleared to make sure. The mantel itself was a