"And you have only books, papers and paintings?"
"The University of California during the Second World War is way before your time," Caydance said to the Archivist. At a Northside cafe not far from the campus, they were meeting for a soup and salad lunch. "But maybe you know a retired art librarian. I'm looking for someone to identify an historian of early California art who probably enlisted in the Army soon after Pearl Harbor."
"You are, I gather, working on a new case. Tell me more."
“Last month, an architect -- her firm is renovating an historic South of Market hotel -- discovered a boarded up studio/workshop attached to the lobby. Hidden by an overgrown garden, she found a back window. The police were present when the window was opened; nothing was found except books, academic journals, papers, and paintings. All published before 1942, the books and journals are primarily California art history. Although there is evidence that the studio was used later, perhaps by an artist intruder who entered from the garden. I have been asked to -- beginning with the original inhabitant -- discover the history of this long deserted workshop.”