“I folded the letter, and, without bothering with a robe or slippers any more than I had during my earlier perambulation, I went downstairs to Aunt Queen’s bedroom. I pushed open the door with a child’s license.

“The light was on of course, and Aunt Queen was on her chaise lounge, swaddled in diamonds and satin covers, eating a pint of pink ice cream.

“Jasmine, who was bunking in with her, lay sound asleep in the bed.

“From the television there came the muted voices of Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland.

“ ‘Tarquin,’ Aunt Queen said at once, ‘what is it?’ She muted the murmuring television. ‘You look like you’ve seen Banquo’s ghost. Come here and kiss me.’

“I kissed her more than willingly.

“ ‘He’s come into my room, Aunt Queen,’ I said breathlessly, waving the letter in her face. ‘And he’s left me this note. I saw him, Aunt Queen. He stood at my fireplace. Goblin told me he was there. And this is the note which he’s left me. Aunt Queen, I tell you something involving murder is afoot out there. And mad as it may sound it’s some sort of secret Byronic society.’

“ ‘Let me see this letter,’ she said. She set her ice cream aside. Meanwhile Jasmine had raised her head and was sliding out from under the blankets.

“I told them both what had transpired upstairs. Jasmine then read the note, and Aunt Queen read it a second time. I was too excited to do anything but pace.

“ ‘We’ve got to start locking the front and back doors,’ Jasmine said, ‘if people are going to come just walking right in without knocking.’

“ ‘We don’t lock the front and back doors?!’ I asked, appalled.

“ ‘No, you know we don’t,’ said Jasmine. ‘The guests come back at all hours from New Orleans. You ever had a key to the front or back door, Tarquin Blackwood?’

“ ‘This guy laughed at me,’ I said as calmly as I could, which wasn’t calm at all. ‘He laughed, I tell you. I heard him laugh and . . .” I stopped. It was the laughter I heard in those dizzy spells. It was the laughter that had accompanied Rebecca’s piteous pleas. Oh, but who would ever believe that!

“ ‘Tarquin, what is it!’ Aunt Queen pressed. ‘Don’t stand there staring. Jasmine, go run and tell Clem to check the entire property. Tell Clem we’ve had an intruder. Hurry.’

“Jasmine headed out.

“ ‘Tarquin, stop staring like that,’ said Aunt Queen. ‘There has to be a reason for this, I mean something that makes sense here. Maybe you’ve hit it. It is a secret society that meets out there, you know, a sort of romantic clandestine thing, and one of them has come into this house, which you know is open at all times, you know, and he has dared to go upstairs. . . .”