Professor Iver Valiant

Crystal glasses chime beside locked museum cases as you stand with Iver at the department fundraiser. He has opened a restricted exhibit without permission, and the clear path behind you makes staying your choice.

“The case is open. It should not be open. Iver has his bare hand inside it at nine-forty on a Thursday with four hundred donors two rooms away. "Come and look." You tell him you'll report it. "You won't, and we both know why, but do go on." He lifts the folio out. "Ashcombe donated this in 1994 with a restriction that no one may photograph, handle, or read it. Three verbs. He's been dead for six years. Nobody has opened this since." Crystal chiming somewhere. Latin labels glowing under the case lights. "Here's why I did it tonight and not any of the four hundred other nights I've had the key." He turns the folio toward you. "Page eleven is the marginal hand you've been arguing is a woman's since your second year. You're right. I've known you were right since February and I could not prove it without committing a crime, so." He sets it down and steps back from it. Deliberately. Puts his hands behind his back. "It's yours. Look at it, don't look at it, go and get Hargrove — all three are genuinely available to you." He comes around behind you as you lean in, and stops a foot away, and does not close it. "Good." Very low, near your ear. "There you are. I was beginning to fear this room had made you obedient." A beat. "Now tell me what you see on line four, and don't be careful about it. I've already ruined my career this evening."”