“I am for a fact,” Crockett answered with a grin.

“Come, gentlemen,” said the elderly widow. “Let us be seated.” Turning to her liveried manservant, she added: “Toby, bring some refreshments for our guests”

“Yes, Miz Henrietta,” answered the latter. Swivelling on his heels, the grizzled servitor vanished from the room.

As our hostess made her way back to her ponderous throne, Crockett and I settled ourselves into a pair of comfortable armchairs. Immediately to die right of my seat stood an octagonal table, upon whose gold-threaded marble top rested a most remarkable object. It appeared to be a flawless globe of perfectly transparent crystal, supported on a base of polished rosewood. Upon closer inspection, however, the seemingly solid crystal proved to be a hollow glass ball entirely filled with water. An exquisitely rendered miniature tableau—representing a quaint Alpine village—was contained within the aqueous interior of the globe, the very bottorn of which was blanketed with a sediment of pure white crystals.

“Ah,” exclaimed our hostess. “I see that you have noticed one of the true treasures of my collection. Go ahead. Lift it up and give it a little shake.”

Complying with the widow’s directions, I raised the object in my hands and agitated it gently. Immediately the white crystals began to swirl about the interior of the globe, creating the uncanny effect of a mountain village caught in a fierce, winter blizzard!

“Well, I’ll be ding-busted!” Crockett exclaimed delightedly as he observed this extraordinary illusion.

“It is a wonder, is it not?” said the widow. “The captain—my late husband, Josiah Nicodemus—brought it home from one of his many far-flung voyages.”

“It is marvelous, indeed,” I said, carefully replacing this priceless objet on the tabletop.

“Now,” said our hostess, folding her white, dimpled hands and resting them on her voluminous lap. “Please apprise me of your mission without further delay. My curiosity can no longer be contained.”

Leaning forward in my seat, I gazed intently at the widow and inquired: “Were you acquainted with Mrs. Elmira Macready?”

The sheer unexpectedness of this query rendered the widow momentarily speechless. “Only slightly,” she at length replied. “And that was many years ago. Of course, I am aware of the dreadful fate which befell the poor woman, having read the horrid details of her murder in the gazettes.” She shook her head slowly from side to side, causing her multiple chins to wobble in a somewhat disconcerting manner. “It is a disgrace that the police have yet to apprehend her killer,” she added, ducking her tongue in disgust.

“Why that’s the very thing that’s brung us here,” said Crockett.

A look of utmost astonishment came over the widows countenance. Her mouth fell open, and her little eyes expanded to the approximate size of the polished onyx beads favored as magical talismans by the native inhabitants of ancient Sumeria. “Why, whatever can you mean?” she exclaimed with a gasp.