Bald display busts were heaped in a large basket. In the flickering light the heads resembled nothing so much as the ghastly fruits of the guillotine.

Several wigs of various shades and shapes were spread out across a table. To Tobias, they looked like the skins of dead animals.

Implements including scissors and combs were neatly arranged beside a stack of toupees. A small loom designed for weaving false hair occupied a nearby bench. The half-finished length of a dark brown hairpiece hung from it.

He raised the candle higher and saw a narrow flight of stairs that led to the rooms above the shop. The steps extended upward into thick gloom.

The foot of the staircase was concealed behind a crate, but he could make out a bit of crumpled white cloth and a stocking-clad foot.

“I think we have just found Swaine.” He went toward the bottom of the stairs.

Lavinia trailed after him.

Tobias came to a halt and raised the candle to examine the scene.

The body was that of a balding elderly man dressed in a nightshirt.

The victim sprawled facedown in a dreadfully tangled, most unnatural manner. There was a vast amount of dried blood on the floor beneath his head.

Lavinia stopped a short distance away and pulled her cloak more tightly around her. She gazed sadly at the body.

“Do you think he got up in the middle of the night and perhaps tripped and fell on the stairs?” she whispered without much hope.

“No.” Tobias bent down to examine the head wound. “I suspect he was struck from behind with some heavy object and then pushed down these stairs so the deed would appear to be an accident. I would say that the murder was done fairly recently. Sometime within the past day or two, I believe.”

“Perhaps he surprised a burglar.”

He straightened and looked up into the darkness at the top of the stairs. “Perhaps.” But his instincts told him that whoever had murdered the shopkeeper had been no ordinary burglar. “I will go upstairs and look around.”

Lavinia turned on her heel, spotted a candlestick with an unlit taper, and picked it up. She lit the candle from his flame.

“I’ll search the front room of the shop,” she said.

He stepped cautiously over the body and started up the steps.

“Look for business records and recent receipts.” He paused briefly.

“And a ring.”

She looked up at him. “You think this is the work of the Memento

“Mori Man?”

“You know how I feel about coincidences.”

At the top of the staircase he found a cozy room furnished with a desk, chair, table, and a small carpet. The quality of the objects gave evidence of quiet prosperity but not great wealth. A doorway led to a tiny bed chamber.

One of the fireplace pokers lay on the cold hearth. He picked it up and examined it in the light of the candle. There were tiny bits of gore and gray hair stuck to it. The wig-maker had certainly not fallen accidentally to his death.

He searched the adjoining room, rummaging methodically through the small wardrobe and the drawers of the washstand. A

variety of wigs hung from pegs on the wall. Evidently the late Mr. Swaine had worn some of his own creations.

When he was finished, he went back into the front room and started to search the desk. Downstairs he heard muffled noises that told him Lavinia was going through some cupboards.

He opened each of the desk drawers in turn and discovered the usual assortment of objects, a penknife, bottles of ink, various papers, and some journals of accounts.

He took out the journals and paged through them swiftly, hoping that luck would favor him.

He saw immediately that Swaine had, indeed, maintained meticulous business records. Each transaction was detailed and dated quite precisely. He selected the most recent one and tucked it under his arm.

Perhaps his luck had finally changed.

Raising the candle on high, he prowled once more through bothrooms, pausing to look closely at the top of the night table and the washstand. He crouched on one knee to check beneath the bed.

There was no ring.

He stood in the middle of the dead man’s sitting room for a while, thinking. When he experienced no inspiring flashes of insight or logic, he made his way back downstairs, stepping carefully over the body a second time.

Lavinia waited for him in the back room. “What are we to do with the shopkeeper’s body? We cannot just leave him here. There is no saying when someone will finally realize that something is wrong.”

“I will send word to the proper authorities. Matters will be handled quietly. I do not want it widely known that you and I were in here tonight.”

“Why not?”

“The less the killer knows of our progress in this case, the better.”

He blew out the candle and led the way to the rear door. “Not that we have made much. Unless you found something helpful?”

“No. But I agree that this was not the work of a burglar. There was no sign that anyone went through the cupboards searching for valuables.” She followed him outside and closed the door. “What is that under your arm?”

“The wig-maker’s journal of accounts for the past six months.”

“Do you think this was the shop where the Memento-Mori Man acquired the blond wig?”

“I think that is a distinct possibility, yes. But Swaine was killed quite recently. I suspect the murderer discovered that we were making inquiries at the wig shops and decided that it would be a good idea to silence the one wig-maker who might be able to describe him.”

“Dear God. Tobias, that means that we are”

“In part responsible for Swaine’s death.” He gripped the journal tightly. “Yes, I’m afraid that is one way of looking at the situation.”

“I feel ill,” she whispered.

“We must find him, Lavinia. That is the only way to stop him.”

“Do you think there will be some clue in that journal?”

“I don’t know. I can only hope that is the case.” He walked with her toward the end of the alley. “I found no ring either.”

She glanced at him, her expression invisible in the shadow of the cloak hood. “What do you think that means?”

“I believe it means that the killer did not consider this murder to be a matter of professional pride. This was not a commissioned kill, but rather a matter of expediency.” He looked back over his shoulder at the door of the dead wig-maker’s shop. “Just part of the cost of doing business.”

The new commission was an extremely lucrative one. The Memento-Mori Man was quite pleased with it. True, Sir Rupert did not meet all of the specifications set down by the one who had trained him, but he had concluded that those requirements were too stringent.

It was all very well for his mentor to carry on about the noble objectives of the firm, the Memento-Mori Man thought, but the reality of the matter was that the commission for Sir Rupert would earn him twice as much money as he had been paid for any of the last three projects.

In addition, it was a simple, straightforward operation. Sir Rupert was elderly and bedridden. True, his only crime was that, in the eyes of one of his very greedy heirs, he had lived a little too long, but that was not a great concern.

A farsighted man of business could not allow outdated notions of honor to stand in the way of profits.

The details of the new commission would be handled in the usual anonymous manner. The client was to leave the full payment at the appointed place in the small lane behind Bond Street. The Memento-Mori Man would retrieve his fee later, when there was no possibility that anyone would notice.

Business was picking up nicely. Word of mouth was, indeed, the best sort of advertising. In addition, the dangerous chess match with March added a euphoric excitement that no drug could equal.