When I had Geraldine Graham’s number, I was tempted to make her wait until morning. But-I’d found a dead man in her childhood pond Sunday night. Maybe someone was making a habit of tossing bodies there and she was watching them do it again. I dialed the number.

“I want you out here at once, young woman.” She sounded as though she thought I was the night chambermaid.

“Why?”

“Because it’s your job to discover who is breaking into Larchmont. You didn’t find them last night, but they are here right now”

“What are you seeing?” I croaked hoarsely.

“What is that, young woman? Don’t grumble at me.”

I tried to clear my throat. “What are you seeing? People? Phantom lights? Cars?”

“I’m seeing the lights in the attic. Didn’t I tell you that? If you come right now, you’ll find whoever it is red-handed.”

“You need to call the cops, Ms. Graham. I live more than forty miles from you.”

She brushed the distance aside: the cops had proved how useless they were; she hoped I wasn’t going to be similarly ineffectual.

“If someone is using Larchmont as a dump for dead bodies, you need to get the local cops there at once. Me arriving ninety minutes from now would serve very little purpose. If you’d like me to call them for you, I can.”

She took my offer as a face-saving out. “And what is your direct number, young woman? I’m tired of relaying messages to you through your help. They’re not cooperative.”

“They’re your best chance of reaching me, Ms. Graham. Good night.” I didn’t want to call Stephanie Protheroe again: one favor a night is all I expect from anyone. I finally remembered the young lawyer on emergency duty for the rich and famous. I found his card with a pager number and beeped him. When he called me back ten minutes later, he was as groggy with sleep as I was, but he agreed to get someone from the New Solway police to drive over to Larchmont.

“Will you let me know what they find?” I asked. “I’m working for the Graham family, you know.”

“It’s a strange life, isn’t it,” he said, “responding to the demands of the very wealthy. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a lawyer joke that covered that aspect of our work.”

While I waited, I made myself another pot of herbal tea. My mother had brought me up to believe one drank coffee as a matter of course, but tea only in illness. I took it into the living room and drank two cups, idling away the early morning by watching Audrey Hepburn stare wistfully at Gregory Peck. All the time I looked at Hepburn’s doelike eyes, I kept wondering whether the New Solway police would catch Catherine Bayard breaking into Larchmont Hall.

After an hour, Larry Yosano called me back. “Ms. Warshawski? I went over with the New Solway police, and we didn’t see anyone. We made a circuit of the house and the outbuildings and didn’t notice any breakage; the security company confirms that no one has tripped an alarm out here.