“I’ve seen weirder, and I expect you have, too,” Young replied. “Frankly, I don’t know what to think, and my superiors in Augusta are all over me. The papers are going to have a field day, too; there’s already a reporter from Boston here, and we can expect TV crews when word gets out about these two women.”

“The Old Farts’ principal suspect is Caleb Stone,” Stone said. “I’ve just had lunch with him, and we went through his alibi thoroughly.” Stone read Young his notes, then tore out the page and handed it to him. “If you can substantiate all this, then Caleb is in the clear.”

Young read through the notes again. “We already have substantiated it,” he said, “point by point. Caleb’s in the clear, as far as I’m concerned.”

“If the alibi checks out, then I’m with you,” Stone said. “Nothing about Caleb strikes me as guilty. The only thing he wouldn’t talk about was his last meeting with Dick, when Dick was passing through Boston on his way back to Washington. He says it was family business and deeply personal, and he wouldn’t talk about it. He told me to tell you he wouldn’t talk about it to you, either.”

“Do you think what they talked about might be relevant to all these killings?”

“I can’t think of anything they might have said that would precipitate the situation we have now. Certainly not the murders of Janey Harris and Joan Peceimer and possibly Terry Brown.”

“Doesn’t seem likely,” Young said. He got up. “Well, I’d better get back to work. Thanks for having a go at Caleb; you’ve saved us some time. Where’s Holly?”

“Out for her run, I expect.”

Young’s eyebrows went up.

“Don’t worry, she’s armed, and she’s very, very capable of taking care of herself.”

“She gives that impression,” Young said.

They shook hands, and the sergeant left.

40

STONE SAT DOWN in the study with a book to await Holly’s return. Over the years he had found that if he distracted himself from a problem for a while, his subconscious seemed to work on it in the background, and it would become clearer.

He read on for half an hour, then became drowsy. He rested his head on the back of the chair for a moment, and shortly he was sound asleep.

When he awoke, the shadows were long outside, and he looked at his watch: nearly seven o’clock. Mabel Hotchkiss came into the room.

“Excuse me, Stone, but will you and Holly be dining in tonight?”

“Yes, I think we will,” Stone said, standing up and stretching. “I was asleep for a while. Did Holly come back from her run?”

“I’ve been in the kitchen, so I haven’t seen her,” Mabel replied.