Griff had not yet arrived. "Your son thinks you will be interested in an artwork puzzle I'm working on," Caydance said to Claude. She opened her artist's tote bag; extracted a desktop slide viewer with an illuminated viewing screen and a miniature slide tray. Beside the slide viewer, she placed an archival plastic box that contained the icon-based board game pieces, which she had cut from heavy Arches paper and painted with watercolor.

Claude pulled the miniature projector to his side of the table, studied it with interest; as Caydance talked, he began inserting and viewing slides of the book-object-without-a-key .

She told him how she had accepted a commission to find the identity of the artist; how with the help of a friend, she had been able to deduce much of the bio of the artist from the images on the accordion-fold "tail" that protruded from the book; how it was likely that the artist's life story concluded inside the locked book, but although there was a keyhole, no key had come with the book; how she had realized that the location of the key was revealed by the icons on the exterior of the object.