Edwards smacked his chair arm impatiently. “The FBI are confident that Sadawi killed Whitby.”

“I told you in the hospital that their theory overlooks a number of important facts. Some of which you know better than L”

Edwards fell silent at that nasty reminder of his housebreaking.

“If you don’t believe in the police version of this journalist’s death, do you have any information yourself about why he went to Larchmont Hall?” Renee asked me.

“I know he visited Olin Taverner, I guess ten days ago. I know Taverner showed him some secret papers which he claimed would make the Hollywood Ten look like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. But I don’t know what was in the papers, and, now that Mr. Taverner is dead, we may never know-since someone broke in and stole them.”

“And neither the magazine nor his family had any inkling of what took Whitney to New Solway?” Renee persisted.

“Whitby,” I corrected her. “I’m assuming it had to do with the dancer Kylie Ballantine-Whitby was interested in her.”

“Oh, yes, the dancer,” Edwards said, a spiteful undertone to his voice. “One of Father’s special projects, wasn’t she, Mother?”

“As you say, Eds,” Renee spoke quietly, but her brows contracted again. “It was good that he was in a financial position to help her out.”

“I’ve always been happy we could support her,” his mother said with more energy. “Like so many black artists of the thirties and forties, she suffered terribly. And she was a gifted researcher as well as an artist.”

“Yes, by the fifties the press was in good shape financially. Father could give her a legitimate advance on a book instead of a handout. And now Whitby wanted to write a book about her.”

“He did?” I said. “How did you know that?”

He looked uncomfortable for a moment, then said, “I thought that was what you said. I must have jumped to a conclusion.”

Renee changed the subject. “You said you had dredged the pond where this unfortunate Mr. Whitney died. Did you find anything that was helpful?” “Whitby,” I corrected again. “Odds and ends. A lot of broken china-I wondered if Geraldine Graham threw a piece in whenever she was upset with her mother. And I found an old wooden mask, the kind of piece Kylie Ballantine collected when she was in Gabon. Oddly enough, the mask had vanished when I went back to collect my findings.”

Renee looked absently at her empty cup. “Perhaps the sheriff’s men seized it as evidence, or maybe it got kicked into the pond when they were racing around. Why didn’t you take it with you to begin with?”

I smiled. “I was freezing. I caught cold Sunday night getting Mr. Whitby’s body out of that wretched water and I didn’t want to get sick all over again. I went to a motel to change into something warm and dry and then got sidetracked with all the excitement over young Benjamin Sadawi. When I finally remembered to return to the pond, that mask was gone.”