The next day was Sunday, and shortly after noon Miss Hildegarde Withers emerged from the subway at Sheridan Square, once the haunt of artists, writers, and madcaps, and nowadays trod by more prosaic though no doubt better-shod feet. The address was on Minetta Lane, which she located with some difficulty. She climbed to the top floor and leaned heavily upon the bell, with no results. Then she knocked. A female voice from within cried “Just a minute!” and then the door was opened by a tall, flushed girl in rumpled green silk lounging pajamas. “Yes?” she said, in a pleasant but somewhat flat middle-western accent. “What is it?”

“Miss Rasmussen? My name is Withers, Hildegarde Withers. Inspector Piper, down at headquarters, suggested that I call on you for a little chat. Completely unofficial, of course. I hope it’s not an inconvenient time?”

“Not at all, come on in. You’ll have to excuse the mess the place is in, but a girl friend of mine was here for breakfast, and I haven’t straightened up yet. Sunday is my lazy day, you know.”

The room was small, with high narrow windows, and had been cheerfully if somewhat artily furnished with rattan and chintz and cheap brassware. Inga indicated the couch. “Do sit down while I fix myself up, I won’t be a minute.”

If it was lipstick that the girl intended to put on, she was already wearing a smudge of it on the lobe of her left ear. Miss Withers sniffed disapprovingly, but all the same she was resolved that if she had any choice in her next reincarnation, she was going to insist on red-gold hair, apple-blossom skin, and eyes like drowned stars. She sat there quietly until Inga returned. “No doubt you think I’m a meddlesome character,” the schoolteacher began, “but after all, a woman was murdered—”

Inga flashed: “If you’re harping on the Wayland thing, I never saw Mrs. Wayland and I’m sorry I ever saw Mr. Wayland and I’m not going to be badgered about it any longer!”

Miss Withers nodded. She looked at the twin wet rings on the glass top of the coffee table, then poked at the edge of the divan cushion where had been spilled some thirty-five cents in change, a small jack-knife, and a silver cigarette lighter. Then she sniffed the air judicially. “Your girl friend smokes a pipe, doesn’t she?”

Inga didn’t answer, but her eyes flashed a brighter green. “Why don’t you ask him to come out of the bedroom?” the schoolteacher continued quietly. “The three of us can have a nice heart-to-heart talk.”

“Okay!” blazed the girl. She crossed the room with a stride like an Amazon’s, and flung open the bedroom door. A man was standing there, a little foolishly, but Miss Withers saw with a start of surprise that it was not George Wayland. It was a young, very handsome police officer, in his shirt-sleeves.