The wooden box was obviously recently polished."This key," Caydance demonstrated. "both locks and opens the box itself. Perhaps it was used to store personal items or valuable paint brushes and micro pens." Remembering Jack's concern that smugglers were using the hotel as a base, silently she returned the box and paper to the easel.

"I have been asked to propose how to use this room", Mei told her. "I envision a reading room with the look and feel of early California about the time when the hotel was built -- and in memory of Ted, gold-framed early California paintings and drawings on the walls, books about California art on shelves. And, beside the window where we are standing, an area devoted to coffee, tea, and French pastry. But Trey favors a bar, and because it is possible that Ted is still alive, our plans for the studio/workshop are on hold."

"A perfect refuge from the busy hotel lobby. What a wonderful idea! Perhaps it could be a coffee house in the afternoon and a bar at night. Perhaps this window will be a door that opens to a garden. But you are wise to wait until Nico returns." The search for Ted was pertinent to her contract to explore the history of the studio/workshop, but Caydance was worried that the issue of Ted's possible ownership of the hotel was a different issue. And this, she could not yet disclose.