“No, no, nooooo.” Godwin looked at her, very surprised. “We had a Founders’ Day parade last year and Margot made bright green sashes for the people playing the characters so the watchers would know who they were supposed to be. So when that psalm—”

“It was from Proverbs,” Shelly corrected.

“Whatever,” said Godwin. “When he read that, it was the high point of the whole funeral, if there can be a high point of a funeral. I mean, the whole thing was so apt. No one will ever forget that reading.”

Betsy was working on the fourth row of knitting without seeing any sign of the pattern promised when the door went bing and a woman came in. She was tall, about sixty years old, slim, and wearing a heather-blue knit dress.

Betsy put her knitting down and stood. “May I help you?”

“I understand the owner has died,” she said. “I had placed an order with her and I wonder what the status of it might be.”

Betsy went to the desk. “What is the name, please, and what was it you ordered?”

“I am Mrs. Lundgren. Mrs. Berglund agreed to copy her needlepoint Chinese horse for me for one thousand dollars, to be picked up here before Thanksgiving Day. Since she obviously won’t be able to fill that order, I am here to inquire if someone else has taken on the task.”

Margot had told Betsy about the commission, and had remarked that Mrs. Lundgren was a longtime customer. Yet the woman standing at the counter did not indicate in the slightest that she was shocked or saddened by the death of Margot.

“I see the framed original has been taken down,” said Mrs. Lundgren. “Do you know if it will be for sale?”

“That’s what’s missing!” shouted Godwin.

“What do you mean, it’s missing?” Shelly asked. “It was here last Wednesday, I saw Margot matching silks with it. In fact, I hung it back up on the wall myself.”

Godwin came around the desk to look on the floor under the wall where the horse had hung. “I wonder where it got to?”

“Broken; stepped on, probably,” said Betsy. “Thrown away.”

Godwin stared at her. “Did you throw it away?”

“No, of course not. Actually, I don’t remember seeing it while we were cleaning up. I know I didn’t throw it away. But somebody did. Or else why isn’t it here?”

But everyone else emphatically denied that anyone would have thrown away Margot’s T‘ang horse. They all knew it was Margot’s finest original needlepoint piece, that she had loved it. Godwin said there was not a flaw in it, and Shelly said it was very valuable, with a glance at Mrs. Lundgren. They all agreed that even if it had been broken out of its frame and dirtied, it would have been set aside to be cleaned and reframed, not thrown away.