“It sounds to me that there are four people involved: X, Y, Z and ESE. It sounds as though Z and ESE were persuaded to go to somebody’s house for drinks, then got drunk and Z threw up, and ESE got her out of there.”

“Z could be Janey Harris,” Stone said, “and X and Y could be Eben and Enos Stone.”

“Could be,” Ginny said,” but there’s nothing here that I can read that identifies X and Y. It could be two other boys on the island or two other girls or even two men. Wouldn’t be the first time grown men tried to lead teenaged girls astray.”

“All right,” Stone said. “Here’s a theory: Labor Day is everybody’s last day on this island. When I spent that summer here, the day after Labor Day, everybody abandoned this place as if it were a sinking ship. By five in the afternoon, the island was practically deserted.”

“What’s your point?” Dino asked.

“Something happened to the girls while they were drunk—maybe they were raped—but Z, or Janey, swore Esme to secrecy, so she didn’t tell anybody, and the next day they left the island with their parents. Dick and Barbara took Esme back to London, and Janey went home to Boston with her parents.”

“Okay. Say you’re right, then what?” Dino asked.

“X and Y are the twins, and they went back to Yale for the fall semester. Neither of the girls told anyone. Maybe they talked on the phone and reinforced their secret that way. But somehow, Dick Stone learned what had happened. Maybe Esme’s mother read her diary.”

“Mothers will do that,” Ginny said. “Mine did.”

“So Dick is furious. On his way from London to Washington, Dick stops in Boston and confronts Caleb with this information. Maybe Caleb doesn’t believe it or believes it and refuses to do anything about it, so Dick, in a fit of pique, draws a new will disinheriting Caleb and, by extension, the twins, and sends the will to me.”

“Wait a minute,” Dino said. “Are you saying that the twins murdered Dick, Barbara, and Esme because they were disinherited?”

“No. What’s more important is that they didn’t know they were disinherited. They wouldn’t have known, because Caleb didn’t know until I told him.”

“So they killed the whole family thinking they would inherit Dick’s wife’s money? That seems like a stretch, Stone.”

“No, no, at least not directly. Esme had talked, or at least her parents had read her diary, so they were at risk for being sent to prison for two rapes.”

“So they killed both the girls, and Dick and Barbara were either collateral damage or killed because they knew about what happened. What about Don Brown?”

“Janey must have told him about the rapes, or at least Eben and Enos thought she did.”