It wasn’t hard to picture Nick in a fedora facing down a pack of hired goons. He had the kind of face that would have looked perfect on a ’40s pulp fiction cover.

“What are you looking at?” Nick asked suddenly, jarring Perry out of his reflections. He hadn’t noticed he was staring, and he colored.

Nick’s hard gaze continued to hold his -- a strange moment passed -- then Nick glanced back out the window and said, “Anything interesting in those papers?”

“Well, one thing,” Perry said slowly, still reading. “The Underground Railroad operated in these parts, and Oswald Hennesey was a fervent abolitionist.”

“Oswald being a descendent of the Hennesey Farm Henneseys?”

Perry nodded. “Did you ever read a book called The House of Dies Drear?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“I read it in junior high. It’s about this kid who moves into a house that was used in the Underground Railroad. Everybody thinks the house is haunted by the ghost of an abolitionist named Dies Drear, but it turns out that the family next door is trying to scare people away so they can steal the treasure buried beneath the tunnels.”

“Oh boy,” Nick said. “I see where this is heading.”

“I’m just sayin’…” Perry was grinning as he returned to his reading.

However he didn’t find anything indicating that Hennesey Farm was actually part of the Underground Railroad let alone that it contained secret passages, and it turned out that Oswald Hennesey had not even lived on the estate. After that brief excitement, Perry’s reading was pretty boring until he found a couple of 1920s newspaper clippings about Henry Alston buying Hennesey Farm.

“Here’s a picture of Verity Lane,” he said, offering one of the books to Nick.

Nick studied the smudged and faded photos. Lane had been a flat-chested, platinum blonde with a bow mouth and wide eyes. Vaguely reminiscent of a Jean Harlow, Lane had been beautiful in the way of women of her era.

Perry was still reading through the clippings. “This file is almost all about the Alstons.” The papers had apparently routinely regaled Depression-era readers with reports of wild parties at the Alston Estate attended by the celebrities and VIPs of the day. Unsurprisingly, the Shane Moran robbery had made the headlines.

“Here’s some stuff on the party itself.”

Nick set aside the pictures of Verity Lane and looked over Perry’s shoulder.

Perry read, “It was a gala event. Chinese lanterns decorated the terrace. The guests dined on roasted squab and danced to the music of Ted Olsen’s Orchestra. Just before midnight, gangster Shane Moran burst in with his gang, robbing the gentlemen and relieving the ladies of their jewels. The famed Alston sapphires, including a necklace valued at over twenty thousand dollars, were snatched from the mistress of the house.

“I wonder what that necklace would be worth now,” Perry interrupted himself to add.

“Plenty,” Nick answered.

Subsequent articles dealt with the police hunt for the gangsters. Two of the men were eventually captured at a speakeasy in Sugarbrush, but the others had disappeared. Moran, of course, had only eluded capture for a couple of days before being cornered in the woods surrounding the estate. The official story was that he had refused the chance to surrender peaceably and had been shot to death by local law enforcement.

There was no explanation -- oddly enough, there was not even speculation -- as to why Moran had tried to return to the scene of the crime. No trace had ever been found of the jewels and other valuables taken on that long ago midsummer evening.

Thoughtfully, Perry closed the binder.

“What?” Nick inquired, studying his face.

“There couldn’t be anyone still left from that fateful party, could there? If someone had been twenty then, they would be in their nineties now, wouldn’t they?”

“Pretty old to be pulling pranks at the old homestead,” Nick agreed, seeing where this was going.

“Nobody at the estate is that old. Mr. Teagle is in his seventies, and Miss Dembecki must be around there. Mrs. Mac is probably…” Perry squinted, trying to place Mrs. Mac.

“Sixties,” Nick said with certainty. “Stein’s probably a little younger. Not a lot.”

It was clear to Perry that Nick was getting restless.

They finished poring over the records of houses in the area, and Perry found a map that he showed Nick.

They bent over it, heads close together, and out of the corner of his eyes he could see the blue shadow beneath Nick’s smoothly shaven cheek, the flicker of his eyelashes, the strong, uncompromising chin and blunt nose.

Nick’s eyes flicked his way as though feeling Perry’s attention, and then returned to the map.

“Doesn’t look like the basic structure changed externally. They mostly added walls inside, making more rooms.”

They finished at the library and walked out on the street. It was about four o’clock and already getting dark. Nick glanced at his watch, then at Perry who -- red plaid scarf wrapped protectively over his mouth and nose -- was gazing at him hopefully.

“You want to go see that damn matinee, don’t you?” he said, resigned.

“Unless you have plans,” Perry said politely through the folds of worsted.

Nick sighed.

They found Nick’s truck and drove over to Dove Street, Perry gazing silently out the window at the houses decorated for Christmas. Wire-framed lighted reindeer pretended to nibble sparse, brown lawns. Colored icicles dangled from eaves, and air-blown Santas bravely bobbed beneath the sleet and rain.

Perry had never felt less enthused about the holiday. Last year he had been full of hopes for the future. He had just moved into his airy tower at the Alston estate and was enjoying having his own place at last. His unease hadn’t begun until later. He’d found the job in the library, the painting was going well, and he’d just met Marcel online. He had dreamed that perhaps by the same time the following year, he and Marcel might…well, no use thinking that way now.

Saints and Sinners starring Jack Oakie and Verity Lane read the lit marquee atop the Players Theater.

Nick parked in the mostly deserted parking lot in the back and said, “Don’t ever say I never did anything for you.”

“I would never say that,” Perry returned quite seriously, pulling his scarf up again.

They walked inside the old movie house; Nick bought a giant tub of popcorn with the air of a man drowning his sorrows in butter topping, and they found seats in the empty theater.

The film was already about five minutes in, but it didn’t matter. As far as Perry could make out, it was something to do with an heiress running away to be with her horse trainer boyfriend. The horse trainer turned out to be no good, but the owner of the stable was one of those square-jawed good guys -- and he was approved by the heiress’s parents -- so it looked like everything was going to work out.

Nick offered his tub of popcorn at frequent intervals, and every so often their hands brushed diving into the carton of hot kernels.

Verity Lane was small and blonde and animated. To Perry she looked like all those other small, blonde, pert actresses of her day. He did not get a particular sense of her personality -- she seemed like a squeaky-voiced anachronism, a little platinum ghost come to life for a few hours.

What about her had inspired Shane Moran to risk death? It was a mystery to Perry. Maybe Nick had a different opinion. He glanced over. Nick watched without expression; Perry could see the shadows from the projector play across his face.

He tried to picture Nick married to someone, but the picture just wouldn’t form.

His thoughts wandered as Verity Lane flirted and wisecracked and wept through the remaining twenty minutes of film. What had happened to Verity after Shane Moran was killed? wondered Perry. Had she and Henry Alston remained together? Henry had lost his fortune a year of so after Moran was shot to death. Had Verity gone back to making movies? He didn’t remember her as one of those aging movie queens on late-night TV. He had the vague notion she’d quit making movies. He couldn’t recall seeing her in anything as she was older; she had made the transition to talkies, but then what?