2

Sunday, 2:40 P.M. to 7:10 P.M.

Grace Logan said, “But of course. You must” in cordial tones, listened a moment, said, “The sooner the better, dear” and replaced the receiver. She sat for a moment in the ivory and white room and looked at the ivory telephone. She rubbed her forehead gently with slender fingers in a gesture so familiar that its purpose no longer existed, although once it might have been, only half hopefully, massage to erase the lines that form on foreheads as, through years, one raises eyebrows in astonishment at the world, knits brows in puzzlement at it, laughs at it and laughs with it. When one has, within months, to expect a sixty-third birthday, one has had time to make many faces at the world.

Grace Logan did not, by some years, look so old as, during recent weeks, she had begun to feel. She was a slender woman of medium height; her body had almost the graceful roundness of youth, and the black dress she wore was artfully contrived; skilled hands had arranged the white hair which was so cleanly white, which contrasted so effectively with the darkness of her tailored eyebrows; practiced hands—in this case her own—had applied lipstick to lips which were still soft, not yet tightened by age. Grace Logan might easily have been thought a dozen years younger than she was, as at fifty she might have been thought a youthful forty. Paul had often told her that.

He had said, when he was very ill, when they both knew he was dying, that he had had the best of her, and that was true—was true for both of them. She thought of Paul now, with Thelma Whitsett’s authoritative voice still in her ears; she thought of Paul, dead five years now, and thought “Poor Thelma” and then that it had been nobody’s fault—not Paul’s, not hers, not Thelma’s either. She thought “I’m lonely” and then that Paul should be here now she needed him. Then Grace Logan, with many things to consider, pulled herself together and considered the most immediate. She went down two flights of stairs and told Hilda that there would be three guests for early tea. “The Misses Whitsett,” she told Hilda, who said that she hadn’t realized it was time for them.

“October,” Grace Logan told her cook, who agreed that, sure enough, it was October.

“Regular,” Hilda said and then, after a moment, “Almost like birds, aren’t they now?”

Grace Logan smiled and nodded, and thought of the Misses Whitsett migrating like birds, passing through New York in mid- or late October on their way south, passing through again in late March on their way to Cleveland. Lucy would enjoy the idea, Grace thought; Penny might. It would not appeal to Thelma. Going up a flight from the ground floor of her immaculate, narrow house to the front living room on the second floor, she wondered, as twice a year she wondered, what she and the Misses Whitsett would find to talk about. The old days, probably—the days they had grown up together, played together on the broad, unseparated lawns of two sprawling houses, gone to school together. So long ago, Grace Logan thought; so dreadfully long ago. Then, as she moved about the room, caressing it as women do the rooms they love, the lines of worry formed again between her eyebrows and again, not knowing she did it, she tried to smooth them away with the tips of her fingers. So much is wrong, she thought; so much worries me. And people are so—so thoughtless. They help so little, try so little to help. Like Rose that morning, after four years.

“To call me selfish!” Grace Logan thought, and sat down quickly in an ordered, empty room. “And to go when I need her most!” And to go, she did not let herself quite think, but could not avoid a little thinking, leaving these doubts in my mind—these doubts about the boy. Grace Logan, who had stood up so well because she had the strength to stand up, erased the doubts. Everything she did for young Paul was what was best for him, and done because she loved him and he was all she had left. It was Lynn who made her mother hard; hardness was contagious. Rose was, of herself, gentle, understanding. All of it proved, if any of it needed proving, that she was right in the stand she had taken. But it left her alone.

If it hadn’t been for the other thing—the obscure, puzzling other thing—she would have been patient enough to make Rose understand. She was too worried to be patient, that was the trouble. She—

She heard footsteps on the stairs and went to the door to greet her guests. Mary, the maid, was hanging their coats in the hall closet below.

Thelma led the way up the stairs and Penny came next and then, with the familiar eagerness on her face, Lucy. Lucy had really outdone herself this time. What a hat!

“My dears!” Grace said, patting Thelma’s arm, putting an arm around Penny, reaching down toward the ascending Lucy. “My dears! How nice!”

“You’ve done it over,” Thelma said, looking around the room. “So beautiful!” Lucinda Whitsett said. “I’ve always loved this room,” Penny said, and sat comfortably down in it. “So homelike, for New York.”

“She always does things so beautifully,” Lucinda said. “Even when we were little girls at home. Remember—”

That started them. Even Thelma, although with brief excursions into the problems of judging cocker spaniels, softened in the warm bath of memory. Lucinda thought, as she so often thought—and said—under similar circumstances, that they had been like Little Women. (And Thelma said, as she commonly said, “Nonsense, Lucinda.”) Thelma remembered a pony Grace had had, and how she envied her the pony; Pennina remembered picnics on the joined lawns and a boy named Harry, unremembered by the others. “He thought you were wonderful,” Pennina told Grace. “I wanted him to think I was.” She smiled comfortably at the memory.

“Not the last time,” Thelma said, a little bleakly, and Grace, rather precipitately, rang for tea.

“I,” said Thelma Whitsett, “would like to use your bathroom, if I may.”

It was characteristic of Thelma, Grace Logan thought as she said “of course,” said that Thelma knew the way—it was characteristic of Thelma that she did not want to “wash her hands.” Her avoidance of circumlocution, particularly in matters of greater significance, was an oddly pleasant thing about Thelma, Grace thought, watching the eldest of the Whitsett sisters leave the room, erect and single-minded. It left you knowing where you were, at any rate.

“Dear Mrs. Hickey isn’t home?” Lucy said, filling a hiatus.

“I’m so sorry,” Grace said. “She’d have loved—” But then she stopped. There was no point in temporizing. “I’m afraid Rose has left me,” she said. “She’s going to live with her daughter. Lynn, you know.” Her voice changed a little, hardened a little, when she spoke of Lynn Hickey. “I suppose Rose felt—” She paused again and shook her head. “I don’t really know what she felt,” Grace Logan said, temporizing after all. “Perhaps she felt cooped up here.”

“A very pleasant coop,” Pennina Whitsett said, and Mary came in with tea, began to arrange it on a table in front of Mrs. Logan. “Very,” Pennina added, looking at layered sandwiches, a napkin covering what might be—what turned out to be—hot biscuits; looking at chocolate cake.

Mary had forgotten the vitamin capsules again, Grace noticed. Or, perhaps, thought the occasion of sufficient dignity to justify departure from routine.

“It looks lovely, Mary,” Grace said and then, “I wonder if you’d mind getting my capsules? In the medicine cabinet in my bathroom, you know.” Of course she knew; she was merely—thoughtless. Grace sighed, and then remembered. “When Miss Whitsett returns,” she said, but that was needless, because Thelma Whitsett then returned. Mary, after an inspecting glance at the tray, went.

“Goodness,” Thelma Whitsett said. “What a lot of tea!” She looked at Pennina. “Remember, Pennina,” she warned. Grace Logan poured tea; Mary returned, with a brown bottle, put it near Grace, and passed embroidered napkins, Haviland plates, sandwiches, biscuits, cups of tea. Conversation ebbed.

Grace Logan herself did little more than nibble at a sandwich, although she drank tea. She was so seldom hungry and, watching Pennina Whitsett, who ate with great propriety but without dilly-dallying, wished she more often were. Perhaps the vitamin capsules took care of it. They were supposed to. She lighted a cigarette, to pass the stipulated fifteen minutes between food and what was, presumably, concentrated health.

“Mrs. Hickey has left dear Grace,” Lucy Whitsett said and then, to the offer of a cigarette, “No, dear, I’m afraid I never do.”

“Left?” Thema said. “Why?”

“She wanted to go live with her daughter,” Grace Logan said. “I’m afraid I’d begun to bore her.”

“It took her a long time to find out,” Thelma said. “Ever since Paul died, wasn’t it? Five years?”

Thelma remembered when Paul died. What had she felt? Grace wondered. She said it had not been quite that long; Rose Hickey had come to live with her, as companion, as friend, about a year later.

“Four years then,” Thelma said. “You’d think she could have found out in five minutes.”

“I’m sure,” Pennina said, and swallowed. “I’m sure Grace couldn’t bore anyone.”

“Nonsense,” Thelma said. “Anybody can bore someone.” She paused. “Not that I suppose Grace did,” she said. “There must have been something else. Quarrel?” The last was to Grace Logan, not about her.

Grace merely shook her head, at first. But then she hesitated.

“Perhaps we had a slight disagreement,” she said. “About—well, about her daughter and young Paul.”

“You mean that’s still going on?” Thelma asked.

“Not really,” Grace said. “At least—”

“You mean it is,” Thelma told her. “Well—why not, Grace?”

“So many reasons,” Grace said, and kept her voice light. “They really aren’t suited. She’s so—” She paused, willing to let it go at that. But Thelma said, “So what?”

“Competent,” Grace said. “So—so self-assured. And, I’m afraid, a little hard. Young Paul is so sensitive, you know. So—so gentle.”

Thelma said, “Um-m.”

“He is, really,” Grace said, and unscrewed the cap from the brown bottle, shook a capsule into her hand. “Vitamins,” she said, and repeated the phrase which had occurred to her a few minutes before. “Concentrated health.”

“You look well enough,” Thelma told her. “Don’t believe in dosing, myself. But I told you that last spring. A change might be good for Paul. Some responsibility.”

“Dear Thelma,” Grace said. “We can’t make people over.”

“Nonsense,” said Thelma Whitsett, who thought you could; who thought that, very often, you should.

“And Sally,” Pennina Whitsett said, as if she had not been listening, but offering a path leading away from disagreement. There was, she thought, so little reason for disagreement.

“Dear Sally,” Lucy said. “And her wonderful husband. The one who writes.”

“You make it sound as if she had a selection,” Thelma told her sister. “And he writes about biochemistry.”

“He expresses himself,” Lucinda said. “So wonderful.”

“I’m afraid largely in formulas,” Grace Logan said. “Sally’s—Sally’s fine.”

There was something in her tone, and she heard it; she had not been casual as she planned. She put the capsule between her lips and washed it down with tea. “She’s out of town now,” she said. “Otherwise, I’d have tried to get her over. She’s so fond of all of you.”

Thelma said, “Um-m” to that.

“Do you mean,” she said then, “that she and that Sandford are splitting up?”

“Heavens no,” Grace said. “Whatever made you think—I—I—”

She put her hand to her head.

“I’m afraid I’m not—” she said, and the words were oddly blurred. “Dizzy—I’m—”

But then she opened her mouth, as if suddenly the air in the room had failed, as if she were trying to gasp it in.

“Grace!” Lucy said, and, oddly, she was the first to move. “Grace! What—?”

But then Grace Logan’s slender body moved convulsively, one foot kicked up and the neat shoe struck the tea table. A cup near the edge slipped off to the carpet, did not break, poured itself empty.

Grace Logan fell back in her chair; for an instant her body arched, then seemed to collapse. For a second longer her eyes stared wildly, as if she desperately sought help. And then there was no expression in her eyes. She gasped for air for a moment more and blueness came into her skin, making her face hideous.

“Heart attack,” Thelma said, and she was up, now. “Get—”

“It’s no use, dear,” Lucy said. She was kneeling beside Grace Logan’s chair. “I’m afraid it’s no use now. And—and I don’t think it’s a heart attack, Thelma. Because—because she smells of peaches.”

Thelma was beside the chair by then. She bent over Grace Logan’s body.

“Pits, Lucinda,” she said. “Peach pits. But that’s—that’s impossible!”

“It ought to be, Thelma,” Lucinda Whitsett said. “Oh, it ought to be!”

Pam North telephoned the Hotel Welby at a quarter after five, seeking news of aunts and getting none. She told Jerry it was strange. “Because,” she said, “six thirty is dinner time.”

“My God,” Jerry said.

He was told that once wouldn’t hurt him, and expressed doubt that this was true. He pointed out that six thirty was in the middle of cocktail time. Then he brightened, and pointed out that, if this was to happen, they had better begin early. He hurried.

But they were only in the middle of the first when the telephone rang and Pam, saying “Here they are now,” answered it. For a moment the voice on the telephone was strange in her ears; it seemed to shake, the words were hurried.

“Pam dear,” the voice said. “This is Aunt Lucy. I—I guess we can’t have dinner with you and Gerald. Oh, it’s so dreadful. You see, Thelma—”

“Aunt Lucy!” Pam said. “Something’s happened? to Aunt Thelma?”

“Not yet,” Lucinda said. “At least, I don’t think so. I’m downstairs telephoning. They said it would be all right, but there’s—I think there’s one of them out there.”

“Aunt Lucy!” Pam said. “What—”

“But they’re so suspicious,” Aunt Lucinda said. “And anyway, I don’t think any of us could eat. It’s all—all so dreadful!” The light, suddenly old, voice broke.

“Dear,” Pam said. “Tell me. What’s happened to Aunt Thelma.”

“They—they’re going to——Oh, Pam!”

Pamela North waited.

“—arrest her,” Aunt Lucinda said. “It—it just can’t be happening. It can’t be!”

“Arrest her?” Pam said, her own voice rising. With her head she gestured to Jerry to get on the extension telephone in his study. He nodded, and went. “What on earth for?”

“Pamela,” Aunt Lucinda said, “I’m afraid—dreadfully afraid—murder.”

“My God,” Jerry said, on the extension telephone.

“She loved Grace,” Lucinda said. “We all did. The other—why, it was twenty-five years ago.”

“Aunt Lucy,” Pam said. “Who has been—you say, murdered?”

“Cyanide,” Lucinda said. “It smells of peaches. No, of peach pits. Apparently it was in a capsule. It was supposed to be vitamins and—oh, Pam—she said it was ‘concentrated health.’ And—and it killed her. And Thelma had been in the bathroom and then they found out about Paul and there’s a man from the district attorney’s office and—Pam, what shall we do?”

“We’ll come,” Pam said. “Where are you?”

She was, they all were, at Grace Logan’s home. It was just west of Fifth Avenue in the Fifties.

“West?” Pam said, doubtfully. It seemed improbable. But Aunt Lucinda was certain of that. A private house.

“It’s between enormous buildings,” Lucinda said. “No yard at all. Oh Pam, can you come?” And Gerald too, of course?”

They could. Pausing only while Jerry gulped what remained in his glass, they did.

“I’m so glad it’s west,” Pam said, in the taxicab. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be Bill. Because he’s west, you know.”

Jerry hoped Aunt Lucinda was right.

“She sounds a little—” he began, and Pam said she knew.

“But,” Pam said, “I’ve always wondered whether she really is.”

About the address, at any rate, Aunt Lucinda was right.

The house was indeed west of Fifth, where few private houses any longer were. It was a four-story house and a narrow one; wedged between much taller and much broader business buildings, Grace Logan’s little house stood with its elbows tight to its sides, a subdued little house which, normally, one might pass a dozen times and never see. But now a good many people were seeing it; they stood on the sidewalk across the street and stared at it, and at the police cars in front of it. Uniformed policemen told them to get along, now, nothing to see here. But they waited all the same.

The Norths’ cab stopped in front of the house, and was waved on. But by then Pam North had the door on her side open and was getting out. “No, lady,” a patrolman said. He looked at Jerry, “No soap, buddy,” he told Jerry.

“Lieutenant Weigand,” Pam North said. “It’s my aunt, you see.”

“Who’s—” the patrolman began, but by then Pam North had advanced, and Jerry paid the cab driver and went after her. At the top of the short flight of stairs running down from the sidewalk to the little entry, Pam stopped and said, “Oh.” She stopped because a large man with a red face filled the front of the entry, and spoke over his shoulder to another man behind him.

“Like I’ve told you I don’t know how many times,” the big man said. “You try to make it hard for yourself, Lieutenant. What more do you want?”

“I’ve no doubt—” the other man, who was only a little above medium height, who had a thin face and wore a blue suit and a soft hat canted a little forward, began. But then, looking over the other’s shoulder, he stopped. He said, “Um-m.”

The big, florid man turned and looked at Pam. After a moment, he grew perceptibly more florid.

“No!” he said. “No!”

“Good afternoon, Inspector,” Pam North said, in a polite small voice. “Hello, Bill.”

“Weigand!” Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O’Malley said, in a great voice.

“Sir?” Lieutenant William Weigand, Acting Captain, Homicide West, said in a much smaller one.

“The Norths!” O’Malley told him. “Don’t you see them?”

“Yes, sir,” Bill Weigand said. “Hello, Pam. Jerry. What in the name of—”

“If you—” Inspector O’Malley said, riding over everyone and now dangerously florid.

“No sir,” Bill Weigand said. “Surprise to me, Inspector.”

“My aunt,” Pam said. “She’s my aunt.”

Both Inspector O’Malley and Lieutenant Weigand looked down at her. So did Jerry North. Jerry ran the fingers of his right hand through his hair.

“You mean to stand there and tell me—” O’Malley began, and stopped, too full of words for utterance.

“I’m so sorry, Inspector,” Pam North said. “I’m afraid so. Aunts, really. I—you see it was really Aunt Lucinda who telephoned and we both thought it was probably east until …” She paused for a moment. “It’s so hard to tell with Aunt Lucinda,” she said, and smiled up at the inspector.

“Stop!” Inspector O’Malley told her. “I—” Again he did not finish. “Weigand.”

Bill said, “Yes, Inspector?”

“I won’t have it,” O’Malley said. “I’ve told you a hundred times. You know what happens when you let them in. You know, don’t you?”

Bill Weigand nodded and looked attentive.

“Gets all screwy,” O’Malley said. “Doesn’t make any sense. Gets so you can’t understand the damn thing. I’ve told you.”

“Right,” Bill said.

“You know what to do?” O’Malley demanded.

“Right,” Bill said.’

“Do it!” Inspector O’Malley commanded. He moved forward, blindly. Pam and Jerry drew aside. Inspector O’Malley steamed up the stairs to the sidewalk. He stopped. “The Norths!” he said. “Good God.” He went, blindly, toward his car.

“He certainly doesn’t like us in things,” Pam North said. “But we can’t just leave Aunt Thelma.”

“Look,” Bill said. “It’s Thelma Whitsett who’s your aunt? And the other two?”

“Of course, Bill,” Pamela North said.

“Not Grace Logan?”

“Heavens no.”

Bill Weigand took a rather obviously deep breath.

“Pam,” he said. “You realize the inspector thought you meant Mrs. Logan was your aunt? That otherwise, Aunt Thelma or no Aunt Thelma, he’d have had you thrown out?”

“Bill,” Pam said, “I was perfectly clear. I don’t—I didn’t even know Mrs. Logan. But I’ve got to help the aunts.”

“I—” Bill began, and then, suddenly, he smiled. “Poor Arty,” he said. “One of these days—” He did not say what one of these days was to bring forth. He said, “As a matter of fact, we’d have wanted you in the end, since the aunts are yours.” He opened the door of the house and let the Norths in ahead of him. In the living room a flight above, in the room in which Grace Logan had died with such sudden violence, but where her body no longer was, he amplified. He spoke quickly, succinctly.

Miss Thelma Whitsett was, in a room on the floor above, being interrogated by an assistant district attorney. The other aunts were waiting their turn. But it was Aunt Thelma in whom the assistant district attorney was most interested, and in whom Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O’Malley was most interested.

“But why?” Pam said. “Why, Bill?”

He told her. Grace Logan had died as suddenly as anyone dies after ingesting five grains or so of potassium cyanide, which turns to hydrocyanic acid in the stomach; which smells then of the insides of peach pits; which causes death by a kind of asphyxia and causes it within minutes. A capsule containing potassium cyanide had been placed among capsules in a bottle containing vitamins, which had been kept in a medicine cabinet in the bathroom off Mrs. Logan’s bedroom. And—Thelma Whitsett had been in the bathroom only minutes before a maid brought the bottle down to Mrs. Logan.

“Opportunity,” Bill told them. “Obviously.”

“Bill,” Pam said. “The maid. Anybody. It might have been there for days. You mean to say the inspector—? Of all the flimsy—”

Bill Weigand smiled faintly. He would admit, to them, here, that the inspector liked things simple. He hesitated.

“In this case,” he said, “very probably too simple. But—it’s not quite that flimsy, Pam. There could be a motive, of sorts. Not particularly good, as it stands. But—how much do you know about your aunts, Pam?”

She knew, she told him, what people generally know about aunts who live in another city, who are seen, briefly, once or twice a year. They were her father’s sisters; they had lived for many years in Cleveland; they had never married.

“Aunt Pennina was always going to,” Pam said. “I don’t know why she never did. Lucy, I guess never. And Aunt Thelma—I don’t suppose she—” But then Pam stopped. She said she was trying to remember something.

“Right,” Bill said. “Your Aunt Lucinda remembered it and—mentioned it. She said, ‘But that’s ridiculous. So long ago.’ Something like that. So we found out what was long ago and ridiculous. You remember?”

“Aunt Thelma was going to be married,” Pam said. “I remember that. It must have been—oh, twenty-five years ago. She must have been—oh, in her middle forties. But, he married someone else.”

“Right,” Bill said. “His name was Paul Logan. He married someone else, Pam. A widow named Grace Rolfe. Five years or so younger than your aunt, and very pretty. She wasn’t pretty when we saw her an hour ago.”

“Bill!” Pam said. “That’s—that’s grabbing a straw. Twenty-five years, Bill!”

Bill Weigand nodded slowly. He said twenty-five years was a long time, too long a time; that no sane person carried hate for twenty-five years; that there was no present evidence there had ever been hate.

“No sane person,” he repeated. “The inspector grants that.”

“You mean,” Pam said, “he thinks Aunt Thelma is—isn’t sane? That she came here to have tea with Mrs. Logan and brought cyanide in capsules? On the chance that Mrs. Logan would be taking capsules and—”

“No,” Bill said. “She knew about the capsules. Mrs. Logan was taking them last spring when your aunts called on her. After tea, as today. Miss Whitsett agrees to that. All the Misses Whitsett agree to that.”

“Jerry,” Pam said. “Don’t you see it’s ridiculous?” Now there was a kind of uneasiness in her voice. “Brooding for years, getting more and more bitter until finally—” Then Pam North stopped, hearing herself.

“It could be argued, Pam,” Jerry said.

“I know,” Pam North said. “I just did. But I don’t believe it, no matter who says it. I—”

But she was interrupted by a voice from the door which said first, “Listen, Loot” and then, in a different tone, “My God.” They looked toward the door, and Sergeant Aloysius Mullins looked at them.

“I guess,” Mullins said. “I should of known, because it’s begun to go screwy, Loot. Hello, Mrs. North. Hello, Mr. North.”

They said “Hello” to Sergeant Mullins.

Mullins still looked at the Norths.

“Right,” Bill Weigand said. “It seems that the Whitsett sisters are Pam’s aunts. So—”

“Oh,” Mullins said. “Well, I should of known. This son of hers isn’t where he’s supposed to be, Loot. Turns out he never was.”

Mullins looked again at the Norths.

“A screwy thing,” he said, vaguely accusing.

“Sergeant Mullins,” Pamela North said. “We don’t even know who you’re talking about. The son of—” She stopped abruptly. “Whoms scare me,” she said. “Whose son?” She looked puzzled. “About whom are you—” she began.

“Never mind, Pam,” Jerry told her, soothingly.

“Mrs. Logan’s,” Bill Weigand told both of them. “Go ahead, Mullins.”

Mullins went ahead. He had not far to go. According to Hilda, the cook, Mrs. Logan’s son had been spending the past week, and was to spend the next, with friends in Maryland. But he was not, had not been. A telephone call disclosed that.

“He could,” Mullins added, “be anywhere. Around here, likely as not. Figure we should—?”

“Not yet,” Bill told him. “Time enough later.”

“All the same,” Mullins said, “it’s another screwy one. You can see that, Loot.”

“It—” Bill began, and then again there was a sound at the door. Aunt Thelma Whitsett came through it, followed by Aunt Pennina Whitsett and Aunt Lucinda Whitsett.

“This,” Aunt Thelma said, without preamble, “is utter nonsense. These men!”

One of the men was behind her. He was a slight, sharp man, with a briefcase under his arm. He looked at the Norths and then at Lieutenant Weigand.

“The Misses Whitsett’s niece,” Weigand told him. “Mrs. North. Mr. North. This is Assistant District Attorney Thompkins. Homicide Bureau.”

He looked at Thompkins and waited.

“For the moment, Miss Whitsett isn’t needed,” he said. “Not by us.” He looked directly at Aunt Thelma Whitsett. “Although,” he said, “I am not convinced that you have been as helpful as you might be. And I don’t want you to leave town.”

“Nonsense,” the leading Miss Whitsett said, in her firmest tone. “Tomorrow we are going to Florida.”

“We’ve got reservations,” Aunt Lucy said, her face not bright but sad, her voice protesting. “We’re booked.”

Aunt Pennina said nothing. She sat down and looked at the other two, and at the men. She waited, relaxed.

“If you try to go you will be,” Assistant District Attorney Thompkins said and then, approving his play on words, “Ha!”

“Lieutenant,” Aunt Thelma said, “tell your man not to be absurd.”

Bill shook his head.

“As a material witness,” the assistant district attorney said. “All three of you, if necessary.”

“Oh Thelma,” Lucy said. “He can! I read somewhere about a poor old man who—”

“Never mind, Lucinda,” Thelma said. “We shall see about this.” She looked, with disapproval, at Thompkins, as if he were a dog without pedigree and of regrettable habits. “I shall consult an attorney.”

“By all means,” Thompkins said. “I should.” It appeared that Aunt Thelma did not abash him. “And,” he added, “I’ll have the train checked, just in case. What train, Miss Whitsett? Or plane?”

“Oh,” Lucinda said, “we never ride planes. We—”

“Don’t be stubborn, Thelma,” Aunt Pennina said, unexpectedly to everybody. “Tell the man.”

“Really, Pennina!” Aunt Thelma said. “Stubborn!” But then she told the man.

“I think now,” Aunt Pennina said, standing up, “that we might go back to the hotel.” She smiled gently at everybody. “I’m afraid,” she said, “it’s quite past our dinner time. And such a trying day.”

Pam and Jerry went with the aunts; Pam after a moment’s hesitation. As they started for the living room door, Thompkins appeared to brush them from his mind.

“So Logan’s skipped,” he said. “Hm-m. How about Sandford?”

“Coming,” Bill Weigand told him, as the Norths started down the stairs. Then he went to the head of the stairs and spoke down to the Norths. “You want to call Dorian and tell her I’ve had it again?” he asked.

“Of course,” Pam said. “Bill—”

“Later, Pam,” Bill Weigand said. “When it clears a bit.”

The police cars, except that which had brought Thompkins and his aides of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau; except for Weigand’s car from the Police Department’s Homicide Squad, had disappeared. The crowd had disappeared. A single uniformed patrolman stood in the entry. He watched the Norths and the Misses Whitsett without surprise, or comment.

The street was empty, with that peculiar emptiness of a New York side street on Sunday. Jerry looked up it, shrugged, and started them toward Fifth Avenue.

They had gone perhaps twenty feet when a tall man, carrying a light topcoat, met them and passed. He was walking quickly, as if late for an appointment. Pam North turned to look after him, and was in time to see him go into the Logan house.

“I wonder who that is?” she said. “One of the family?”

Jerry shrugged.

“Probably Sandford,” Pam said. “They were expecting a Sandford. Whoever he is?”

Again Jerry shrugged.

They walked on, almost alone in the block. But then, as if he had suddenly come into existence there, there was a man on the other side of the street. He was walking slowly, sauntering, as if going nowhere. Then, when he was across from the Logan house, his slow movement slowed still further. It ceased. Then, in the shadowed street, the man on the other sidewalk ceased to exist as surprisingly as he had come into existence.

“Jerry!” Pam North said, her voice low, almost a whisper. “He’s following him! Did you see?”

It looked, Jerry North agreed, uncommonly like it. The cops were thorough tonight. Then a cab came with its top lights on, and Jerry flagged it down.