“Good heavens,” she said. “I wish I could say I was surprised, but I’m not. Someone should destroy these files—the way J. Edgar Hoover’s blackmail files were destroyed after his death.”

“I was thinking more about Sherlock Holmes burning Charles Augustus Milverton’s files,” I said. “And I’d be in complete agreement except for the small fact that there might be some clue in these files to help the chief find Vess’s killer.”

“Then why are you taking this file?” she asked, tapping one manicured nail on the hanging folder labeled THORNEFIELD INVESTIGATION.

“I’m not,” I said. “It was already missing when I came. Do you have any idea what it could be about?”

“He usually kept his little investigations close to the vest,” she said. “I have no idea. But if he thought there was anything the least bit suspicious about Mrs. Thornefield, he’s very much mistaken. She was a gracious and generous lady with impeccable taste.”

“If you say so,” I said, thinking of that heavy furniture in the church basement. “Maybe Vess was inspired by her generosity and was investigating how she went about arranging her legacy to the church. Maybe he was thinking of following suit.”

“Maybe.” She glanced around with an appreciative air. “It would be nice, of course, but I’m not holding my breath. Maybe he has—had—some bee in his bonnet about the legacy causing us a tax problem. Or an insurance problem, from storing all that stuff in the undercroft. Though that would be his own fault—he was the one who vetoed short-term storage, even though the Shiffley Moving Company would have given us a bargain rate.”

“Keep your eyes open, then,” I said. “And let’s get out of here before someone catches us trespassing.”

“Did you feed the cat, dear?”

“Yes,” I said. I walked down the hall to the kitchen and poked my head in. I could see, in the utility room beyond, the hindquarters and tail of a small gray cat, and by the sound of it she was bolting down her food. I backed away as quietly as I could.

“Mission accomplished,” I told Mom. “By the way, what will happen to the cat?”

“Robyn has half a dozen volunteers to take her if the son doesn’t want her,” Mother said. “She’ll be fine.”

She looked around and shook her head.

“Such a lonely man,” Mother said.

“At least he had a cat for company,” I said.

“He was always complaining that she was an incompetent mouser,” Mother said.

“But did he get rid of her because of that?”

Mother held her hands up as if conceding my point.