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The dining room was so small that Matt decided there must be another, larger one, and that they were dining en famille. Confirmation of that came immediately when Mr. Reynolds asked him if “he would like to watch a master of the broiler at work.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We can finish our drinks out there,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds led Matt out to the patio, where a gas charcoal grill was giving off clouds of smoke. What looked like a London broil was on a large white plate.

“It’s one of the unanswered questions of my life,” Reynolds said as he opened the grill’s top, “whether women are congenitally unable to cope with a charcoal grill, or whether they are all united in a conspiracy to give that impression, and have the men do their cooking for them.”

“I would bet on the conspiracy theory,” Matt said.

Reynolds threw the slab of beef on the grill, closed the top, and pushed a button on the stainless-steel Rolex Chronograph on his wrist.

“I don’t know,” Reynolds said. “I think it’s significant that until very recently, there have been very few females among the great chefs of the world. I think it has to do with the difference in the way men and women think.”

“How so?”

“Women are always changing, and improvising. Men solve a problem—for example, how long over a fire of a certain temperature one broils a London broil. In this instance

, four minutes on one side, three and a half on the other for medium rare—is that how you like your broil, Matt?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And once we have solved the problem, that’s it. We go on to other problems. Females, on the other hand, cannot resist tampering. If you’re a chef, feeding, say, fifty people in the course of an hour, you can’t tamper. A certain efficiency is required, and, generally speaking, most women just don’t have it in them to be efficient.”

“I suppose that could be true,” Matt said.

“I know it’s true,” Reynolds said. “You start thinking about it—I don’t mean just tonight, I mean over the next six months or so, and you’ll find plenty of examples to prove I’m right.”

“I’ll give it a shot,” Matt agreed.

Reynolds consulted his watch, and at what was presumably precisely four minutes, opened the grill and flipped the broiler. Then he reset his watch.

“Do you cook, Matt?”

“I’m a bachelor,” Matt said. “Sometimes it’s necessary.”

“You should give it a shot,” Reynolds said. “It’s really quite rewarding.”

“I don’t have much of a kitchen,” Matt said.

“Then get one,” Reynolds said. “There are three things that give a man contentment in life. Good shoes, a good mattress, and a decent kitchen.”

“How about a good woman?”

“That’s a given,” Reynolds replied. “Of course a good woman.”

At what was presumably precisely three minutes and thirty seconds after he had flipped the London broil, Reynolds removed it from the grill with an enormous stainless-steel fork and laid it on the plate.

Then, with Matt following, he marched back into the small dining room, laid the platter on the table, and motioned for Matt to take a seat.

“The final step,” he announced, “is to let the meat stand for five minutes before slicing. That gives the juices a chance to settle, and while that’s happening, to have a little glass of wine to cleanse the taste buds. I asked Harriet to open some cabernet sauvignon, to let it breathe. I hope that’s all right with you?”

“That’s fine with me,” Matt said. He smiled at Susan. “Do you cook, Susie?”

Her mother answered for her.

“Daddy’s tried to teach her. But Susie really doesn’t seem to care much about it.”