Cloaked in elegant gray velvet curtains, three-story windows admitted only stray particles of daylight. The floor was a pool of black marble. As Charlie’s eyes acclimated, trophies sprang from the dark mahogany walls—a lion, a boar, a herd of antlered animals, and an elephant with tusks big enough to bracket a car. Breathing in the bouquet of cigars and old leather, Charlie reflected that at least the Bond movies got the locations right.As large as the entry hall was, it was hushed. The hiss of Isadora’s rubber wheels reverberated into a shriek. “Let’s go to the tea parlor, it’s a bit cozier,” she whispered—any louder, it seemed, and the echo might loosen bits of ceiling.The tea parlor was indeed cozy compared to the entry hall; still it was as large a room as Charlie ever had been in that wasn’t public. Fluted columns sustained a high ceiling and framed ten bays, each adorned with hand-painted battle scenes. Friezes repeated in half-moons over the doors and over a stone fireplace almost as big as his bedroom.
