“About half of them. As you can see, I still got the feeling of a big party. There’s Lydia conferring with Maldwin and the other butlers in the kitchen …”

“There’s a female butler,” Regan observed.

“A hard worker,” Stanley said vehemently. “A hard worker.”

Now they were watching a man talking to a woman holding a Snoopy purse.

“That’s some purse,” Regan said.

Stanley sighed. “She hung onto it all night. As a matter of fact, she got very upset when the whole commotion started and we found out Nat Pemrod had died.”

“Did she know him?”

“She said to me that she had met him at one of the other parties. He told her he liked her purse.”

Could she be Buttercup? Regan wondered. Could one of these other women be Buttercup?

Regan didn’t have time to watch every minute of the nearly four hours of tapes, but what she saw acquainted her with some of the people she’d be meeting at the party tonight. “What happened when the police showed up?” she asked Stanley.

Stanley fast-forwarded to the end of the tape, which showed a policeman standing outside Nat’s apartment. Then it went blank.

“That’s it?” Regan asked.

“I ran out of tape.”

It figures, Regan thought.

“But they wouldn’t let me inside anyway.” Stanley pressed the OFF button on his set. “Was that helpful?”

“Yes,” Regan said truthfully.

“You know, I take a lot of footage and then boil it down to the most interesting sound bites.”

“I understand,” Regan said, then lowered her voice in a way that indicated she wanted to make Stanley a confidant. “Bring a lot of tape tonight, would you? I’ll pay for it. Your camera can be another set of eyes for us. You never know what we’ll pick up.”

Stanley beamed. Maybe I’ll get a network show out of this, he thought.

When Regan left, she hailed a cab uptown. It was four o’clock, and even though it felt cold and wintery, the days were getting longer and longer. Springtime was just around the corner.

Of course, April is the cruelest month, she thought. Although I think that for certain people March is a strong contender. Certainly for Nat and Ben.

I so want to help Thomas, she thought. But it seems as if he just makes things worse for himself. If someone from Lydia’s party stole the diamonds or killed Nat, it’s because Thomas allowed Lydia to invite strangers into the club.

But there was no sign of forced entry. Anyone who ended up in Nat’s apartment, Nat must have known.