“Permit me to elucidate,” I said. I then proceeded to offer a concise summation of the mysterious and alarming events that had commenced with the killing of Mrs. Macready, omitting only those gruesome details which would have caused my elderly auditor gratuitous dismay. I concluded by inquiring: “Does the word ‘Nevermore’ suggest any particular meaning to you?”

Arranging her features into a look of intense concentration, she sat silently for several moments before replying: “None that I can think of.”

At this disappointing—if not wholly unexpected—reply, I exhaled a protracted sigh.

“I still do not see,” said the widow, “how all of this unpleasantness relates to me.”

“More than twenty-five years ago,” I replied, “Shakespeare’s magnificent—if occasionally overwrought—tragedy King Lear was mounted here in Baltimore at the Front Street Theatre, with my mother in the rôle of the saintly Cordelia. An old, indeed somewhat disintegrating, review of this performance is among my most treasured possessions. In examining this notice, I was astonished to discover that all three of the individuals who have recently met such ghastly—such unspeakable—deaths were in attendance on that long-ago evening.” Here, I paused for a moment and fixed the widow with a meaningful stare. “You and your late husband were present at the performance as well.”

“But surely this is nothing more than sheer coincidence!” the widow exclaimed.

“Maybe so,” Crockett said, “But there ain’t no harm in playing it safe for a spell.”

“Playing it safe?” said Mrs. Nicodemus. “In what way?”

“For one thing,” I said, “you must exert inordinate caution in regard to your future visitors. Only those individuals with whom you are most intimately acquainted should be permitted to enter your premises until such time as the perpetrator of these atrocities has been apprehended.”

The widow’s response to this admonition was surprising in the extreme: she placed the fingers of one white, dimpled hand over her mouth and emitted a soft chortling sound, as though I had uttered a singularly amusing witticism.

“What’s so all-fired funny?” Crockett inquired.

“Only a few days hence,” she replied with a smile, “more than one hundred of my acquaintances shall be present in my home.”

“Why, what do you mean?” I exclaimed at this startling pronouncement.

“My annual masked ball takes place on Saturday night.”

“Then it must be cancelled,” I said emphatically.

“Impossible!” she cried. “The Nicodemus masque has taken place each year for more than two decades. Surely you have heard of it.”

In truth—though I was unaware of its imminent occurrence—no resident of our city could fail to be cognizant of this celebrated fête, which was widely regarded as the highlight of the Baltimore social season.

“But dad-blame it,” Crocked: exclaimed. “Having a passel of folks wandering around here in masks is the foolishest notion I ever struck! Why, it’s just asking fer trouble!”