“But,” Bill said, “she hadn’t been drinking. The medical examiner is quite certain of that.” He seemed to wait for comment.

“She said she never did,” Pam told him.

“So—” Bill said.

Then Hortense Notson spoke, in a tense voice. “You act,” she said, “as if you think one of us pushed her.”

Weigand looked at her carefully. He said, “No. That didn’t happen, Mrs. Notson. How could it have happened? You were all in the dining room, looking up at her. How could any of you have pushed her?”

“Then,” Clark Notson said, and spoke quickly, with unexpected violence. “Then why all this? She . . . what? Had a heart attack?”

“Possibly,” Bill said. “But the doctors—”

Again he was interrupted.

“I’ve heard of you,” Notson said, and leaned forward in his chair. “Aren’t you homicide?”

“Right,” Bill said. He looked around again, slowly. “As Mr. Notson said, I’m homicide.” And he waited.

Phyllis Pitt—the pretty, the very pretty, light-haired woman—had been crying. More than the rest, in expression, in movements, she showed the shock of what had happened. “Those dreadful stairs,” she said, as if to herself. “Those dreadful stairs.”

Her husband got up and went to her and leaned over her. He touched her bright hair and said, very softly, “All right, Phyl. All right.”

“Bill,” Pam said. “Fern fell downstairs and—and died. What more is there?”

“You all agree,” Bill said, “that she was flushed and excited and uncertain—as if she had been drinking. But she hadn’t been drinking. And . . . the pupils of her eyes were dilated. That was why she seemed to be staring. Because, you see, she couldn’t see where she was going. So . . .” He paused. “She walked off into the air. I have to find out why. So what I want . . .”

It took him a long time to get what he wanted, which was all they could remember, one memory reinforcing another, of what had happened from the start of the dinner party until it ended with Fern Hartley, at the foot of the staircase, all her memories dead. Pam, listening, contributing what she could, could not see that a pattern formed—a pattern of murder.

Fern had seemed entirely normal—at least, until near the end. They agreed on that. She had always remembered much about the past and talked of it. Meeting old school friends, after long separation, she had seemed to remember everything—far more than any of the others.

“Most of it, to be honest, wasn’t very interesting.” That was Hortense Notson. Hortense looked at Pam, at Phyllis Pitt.

“She was so sweet,” Phyllis said, in a broken voice.

“So—so interested herself.” Pam said. “A good deal of it was pretty long ago, Bill.”

Fern had shared her memories chiefly with the other women. But she had talked of the past, also, with the men.