The answers to those questions will take time, if they come at all; but lucky Ed, a reply is nearly immediate. And he's lucky, too, to have a familiar face, though that won't get him as far as it might if he wasn't so clearly dead, and therefore Not Jerome. Not that Jerome is Jerome, but of course that's a whole other question.

What the resemblance will buy him is an invitation, though of course that's only a necessity in old wives' tales. Eugene doesn't even ask; if one could hear, he might be muttering something about idiots and lost keys. All Ed gets is the unmistakeable buzz of the lock being opened, and (assuming, of course, he opens the door before Eugene rolls away,) an empty entryway and a staircase.