“Oh, Maggie, you’re touched,” Earl said, his tone reverent. “How understanding of you. Now on this floor, as I told you, I have rooms that exhibit twentieth-century death rituals.”

He pushed aside a heavy curtain. “In this room, I’ve staged Emily Post’s version of a very small funeral. See?”

Maggie looked in. The figure of a young woman, dressed in a pale green silk robe, was laid out on a brocaded sofa. Long auburn ringlets spilled around a narrow satin pillow. Her hands were folded over silk replicas of lilies of the valley.

“Isn’t that charming? Doesn’t she look just like she’s sleeping?” Earl whispered. “And look.” He pointed to a discreet silver lectern near the entrance. “Today, this would be where visitors sign the guest book. What I did instead was to copy a page from the original Emily Post book about the care of the bereaved. Let me read it to you. It’s really quite fascinating.”

His voice echoed through the too-quiet room:

“‘The ones in sorrow should be urged if possible to sit in a sunny room and where there is an open fire. If they feel unequal to going to the table, a very little food should be taken to them on a tray. A cup of tea or coffee or bouillon, a little thin toast, a poached egg, milk if they like it hot, or milk toast. Cold milk is bad for one who is already over-chilled. The cook may suggest something that appeals usually to their taste…’”

He stopped. “Isn’t that something? How many people today, no matter how much money they have, have a cook who is worried about what appeals to their taste? Right? But I think this would make a wonderful individual visual, don’t you? The signatures for the opening and closing, though, have to have a broader scope.”

He took her arm. “I know you don’t have a lot of time, but please come on upstairs with me. I’ve got some great replicas of archaic separation rites from ancient times. Banquet tables, for example. It would seem that diverse people inherently understood that death must include a banquet or feast at the end of the ceremony, because extended grief is debilitating to the individual and to the community. I’ve got typical examples set up.

“Then there’s my burial section,” he continued enthusiastically as they ascended the stairs. “Have I mentioned a custom of the Sudan people who suffocated their leader when he was becoming old or feeble? You see, the principle was that the leader embodied the vitality of the nation and must never die or the nation would die with him. So when the leader was clearly losing his power, he was secretly put to death, then walled up in a mud hut. The custom then was to believe that he had not died but, rather, had vanished.” He laughed.

They were on the second floor. “In this first room, I’ve created a replica of a mud hut. Now just between us, I’ve already gotten started on an outdoor museum where the burial area can be even more realistic. It’s about ten miles from here. So far I’ve had some excavation done, basically just some bulldozing. I’m designing the entire project myself. But when it’s completed, it really will be quite wonderful. In one area I’ll have a miniature replica of a pyramid, with a section of it transparent so that people can see how the ancient Egyptians entombed their pharaohs with their gold and priceless jewels to accompany them into the hereafter…”

He’s babbling, Maggie thought, a leaden sense of unease settling over her. He’s crazy! Her mind was racing as he propelled her from room to room, each of them containing what resembled an elaborately structured stage setting. Earl was holding her hand now, pulling her along as he darted about to show everything, explain everything.

They were almost at the end of the long hallway, and Maggie realized that she still had not seen anything resembling the bells she had found on the graves.

“What do you have on the third floor?” she asked.

“That’s not ready for exhibits yet,” he replied absently. “I use it for storage.”

Then he stopped abruptly and turned to her, his eyes intense. They were at the end of the hallway, in front of a heavy door. “Oh, Maggie, this is one of my best exhibits!”

Earl turned the handle and with a dramatic flourish threw open the door. “I combined two rooms to get the effect I wanted here. This depicts an aristocrat’s funeral in ancient Rome.” He pulled her inside. “Let me explain. First they built a bier, then they put the couch on it. On top of that were placed two mattresses. Maybe this would make a good opening shot for the series. Of course, right now the torches just have red light bulbs, but we could really have them flaming. The old man who made this bier for me was a real craftsman. He copied it exactly from the picture I gave him. Look at the fruit and flowers he carved into the wood. Feel it.”

He grasped her hand and ran it along the bier. “And this mannequin is a treasure. He’s dressed just like a dead aristocrat would be dressed. I found that fancy raiment in a costume shop. What a show these funerals must have been! Think of it. Heralds, musicians, flaming torches…”

Abruptly he stopped and frowned. “I do get carried away on this subject, Maggie. Forgive me.”

“No, I’m fascinated,” she said, trying to sound calm, hoping he would not notice the dampness of the hand he was at last relinquishing.

“Oh, good. Well, there’s just one more room. Right here. My coffin room.” He opened the last door. “Quite a spread here too, wouldn’t you say?”

Maggie stood back. She did not want to go in that room. Only ten days ago she had been the one to choose a casket for Nuala. “Actually, Earl, I should be heading back,” she said.

“Oh. I’d like to have explained these. Maybe you’ll come back. By the end of the week, I’ll have the newest one in. It’s shaped like a loaf of bread. It was designed for the corpse of a baker. The custom in some African cultures is to bury the deceased in a coffin that symbolizes the way that person’s life has been spent. I included that story in one of the lectures I gave to a women’s club right here in Newport.”

Maggie realized that he might have given her the opening she had been seeking. “Do you lecture in Newport very often?”

“Not anymore.” Earl closed the door of the coffin room slowly, as though he were reluctant to leave it. “You’ve heard it said that a prophet is without honor in his own country, no doubt? First they expect to get you without even an honorarium, then they insult you.”

Was he talking about the reaction to his lecture at Latham Manor? Maggie wondered. The closed doors of the rooms shut out most of the light, and the hall was filled with shadows, but even so she could see that his face was turning crimson. “Surely, no one insulted you?” she asked, her voice controlled, caring.

“Once,” he said darkly. “It upset me terribly.”

She didn’t dare tell him that Liam had been the one to tell her about the incident with the bells. “Oh, wait a minute,” she said slowly. “When I visited Mrs. Shipley at Latham Manor, didn’t I hear that something unpleasant had happened to you when you were kind enough to speak there? Something involving Mrs. Bainbridge’s daughter?”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Earl replied sharply. “She upset me so much that I stopped giving one of my most effective lectures.”

As they walked down the stairs to the first floor, past the mannequin of the liveried footman and out onto the porch, where, Maggie realized, the daylight felt unexpectedly strong after the dim interior of the museum, Bateman told of that evening at Latham Manor and described handing out the replicas of the Victorian bells.

“I had them cast specially,” he said, his voice ominous with anger. “Twelve of them. Maybe it wasn’t smart to have let those people hold them, but that was no reason for treating me the way that woman did.”

Maggie spoke carefully. “I’m sure other people don’t react that way.”