CHAPTER FOURTEENSwept and Garnished
Gamadge and Malcolm walked ahead of the Spitanos into a corner room so large that Mr. Spitano had to explain it. Mr. Raschner, he said, had removed partitions.
“There is only this room and a little bedroom,” he said, “and a pantry-kitchen and bath. Just right for a bachelor. Two bachelors.”
Maria turned on red-shaded lights to display more of the cut-velvet crimson wallpaper, which was without other blemish than a few streaks of fading. Four long windows, two at the front and two at the side, were hung with long, padded, crimson-velvet curtains, each curtain decorated waist-high by a twelve-inch monogram in gold thread. The same monogram—G.K.R.—had been woven into the fitted crimson carpet, and was repeated on the velvet backs of the carved-oak chairs
