“It didn’t mean much to me,” Stanley Pitt said. “It seemed to be all about Centertown, and I’ve never been in Centertown. Phyllis and I met in New York.” He paused. “What’s the point of this?” he said.

“I don’t know,” Bill Weigand told him. “Not yet. Everything she remembered seemed to be trivial? Nothing stands out? To any of you?”

“She remembered I had a black eye the first time she saw me,” Clark Notson said. “Hortense and I—when we were going together—ran into her at a party. It was a long time ago. And I had a black eye, she said. I don’t remember anything about it. I don’t even remember the party, actually. Yes, I’d call it pretty trivial.”

“My God,” Stanley Pitt said. “Is there some point to this?”

“I don’t know,” Bill said again, and was patient. “Had you known Miss Hartley before, Mr. Pitt?”

“Met her for the first time yesterday,” Stanley told him. “We had her to dinner and she stayed the night. Today I took her to lunch, because Phyl had things to do about the party. And—” He stopped. He shrugged and shook his head, seemingly at the futility of everything.

“I suppose,” Jerry North said, “the point is—did she remember something that somebody—one of us—wanted forgotten?”

“Yes,” Bill said. “It may be that.”

Then it was in the open. And, with it in the open, the six looked at one another; and there was a kind of wariness in the manner of their looking. Although what on earth I’ve got to be wary about I don’t know, Pam thought. Or Jerry, she added in her mind. She couldn’t have told Jerry anything about me. Well, not anything important. At least not very . . .

“I don’t understand,” Phyllis said, and spoke dully. “I just don’t understand at all. Fern just—just fell down those awful stairs.”

It became like a game of tennis, with too many players, played in the dark. “Try to remember,” Bill had told them; and it seemed they tried. But all they remembered was apparently trivial.

“There was something about a boy next door,” Phyllis Pitt remembered. “A good deal older than she was—than we all were. Next door to Fern. A boy named—” She moved her hands helplessly. “I’ve forgotten. A name I’d never heard before. Something—she said something dreadful—happened to him. I suppose he died of something.”

“No,” Hortense Notson said. “She told me about him. He didn’t die. He went to jail. He was always saying ‘oh.’” She considered. “I think,” she said, “he was named Russell something.” She paused again. “Never in my life, did I hear so much about people I’d never heard of. Gossip about the past.”

Stanley Pitt stood up. His impatience was evident.