“Where else did she go that day? Do you know?”

“She went to the Minneapolis art museum.”

“Yes, but would that take all day? How long does it take to make one of those needlepoint canvas paintings?”

Jill shrugged. “I don’t think she was going to paint it, just do some sketches, take notes. I don’t know how long that takes.”

“Not all day. I wonder where else she went? Who else she saw?”

“You can ask around, I guess. Probably Mike has already.”

Betsy said, “Well, we know she didn’t see someone in the shop on her way home and go in to confront him.”

“We do?”

“Yes, because now we know Sophie was with her. She had to go upstairs and then hear something and come down with the cat. Probably she heard the noise he made breaking in.”

Jill said, “The lock wasn’t forced, or the door broken. The assumption is, he tried the front door and it wasn’t locked.”

“It was locked, I locked it when I closed up.”

Jill didn’t say that maybe Betsy only thought she locked it, but her face showed it.

“I did lock it,” repeated Betsy stubbornly.

“Okay, you locked it,” said Jill. “He picked the lock. But about Sophie: I think you must be right, she came down with Margot. And was frightened by what followed, and ran out the open front door. You said you found it partly open.”

“Yes, that’s true. But, Jill, if I was going to sneak downstairs to see if there was a burglar, I sure wouldn’t bring a cat with me.”

Jill shrugged. “Maybe Margot opened the door, and Sophie sort of darted out. And maybe Margot didn’t see her.”

Betsy snorted. “Not see her? Twenty pounds of white longhair who insists on leading the way? Anyhow, Sophie doesn’t dart, she ambles.”

Jill shrugged again and returned to lifting out canvases.

“No, listen to me,” said Betsy. “I’m trying to picture how this happened. Margot’s just gotten home—”

“How do you know that?” interrupted Jill. “Maybe she’d been home an hour.”

“Maybe, she got home at ten and I got home at eleven. But she was the kind who takes off her good clothes right away. She would put on something casual to lounge around in, or her pajamas if it was close to bedtime. But she was wearing her good clothes—” Betsy paused to swallow, then shook her head determinedly and continued, “So she hadn’t been home more than a couple of minutes. Now, suppose she heard someone breaking in downstairs and decided to go down and get a description for the police. Apart from that being one of the dumber things you can do, it’s beyond belief that she’d bring a cat along. Even if she did open the door and Sophie walked out, you’d think she’d have got in front of her and herded her back inside. Sophie’s a good cat, she lets herself be herded. Anyone with brains would have done that; you don’t want a big white cat going ahead and letting the burglar know someone’s coming, or hanging around your ankles and tripping you, or getting in the way in case you have to hurry back to the apartment and call the cops. Which is what she would have done in the first place, so I don’t understand why she ended up down here to begin with!” Betsy had been getting more heated in her argument as she became more convinced of its soundness.