The room was filled with the heady scent of roses past

their prime. Pink petals fell from swollen hl0ssoms in a

Chinese bowl onto the polished surface 6f an ormolu

escritoire. Although it was day, rose-shaded lamps were

lit, and curtains of the same hue, drawn for the mght

in voluminous folds, remained closed. The bed had been

rested upon, but not slept in, its rose-colored linens still pris-

tine and uncreased. A vermeil clock, unwound too long, had

ceased to tick; a radio, left on too long, had lost its tonal

focus.

Lying on the floor, face down on the rose border of an

Aubusson rug, was a golden-haired woman in a satin-and-lace

nightgown. She was dead. More than a day dead. Perhaps

even two.

Had she been alive, she would have told you, whether you

asked her or not, that the Chinese bowl had once belonged

to Magda Lupescu; that the escritoire had once belonged to

Marie Antoinette; that the vermeil clock had been given to

the Empress Elizabeth of Austria by the~fi~ad King Ludwig of

Bavaria; that the Aubusson rug was a gift of the Belgian court

to the Empress Carlotta of Mexico. That they were ill-fated

women was of less consequence to the deceased than the sense

of luster she acquired when repeating the history of her pos-

sessions.

The dead woman s name was Ann Grenville. Leaning

against a wall of her bedroom was the infamous portrait by

Salvador Dali that had so deeply offended her on its comple-