“My goodness!” she exclaimed. “Do I take that to mean you have gotten no sleep?”

“Such, indeed, was the purport of my statement,” I replied.

“My poor boy!” she cried. “You must be exhausted. Sit down at the table and I will fix you a nice cup of tea.”

Obeying her directive, I settled into my customary place, while—setting a pot of water upon the now-enkindled stove—the good woman inquired as to the nature of the crisis that had occurred at the museum.

“Someone was killed,” I grimly replied. “And in a manner so savage, so sheerly atrocious, that to recount it in any detail would serve no other purpose than to fill your soul with revulsion.”

“How awful,” she said. “But what have all of these dreadful crimes to do with you?”

“As of yet, that mystery remains unresolved,” I replied. “Through my indefatigable exertions, however, I have at last discovered a clue which may lead to an answer.”

“What sort of clue, dear?” she inquired.

“One whose significance you yourself may prove instrumental in helping me to discover.”

“Me?” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” said I. “And now, dear Muddy, if you will join me at the table, I wish to ask you some questions regarding a person of whom we have rarely, if ever, spoken. I refer to your elder brother—my long-vanished father—David Poe.”

In response to this statement, Muddy’s visage assumed an expression of the purest surprise. “Why, what do you wish to know about him?” she said at last.

“All that you can tell me of the circumstances which impelled him to violate the most sacred, the most primal bonds of both conjugal and parental devotion, and to abscond from his young wife and babes.”

The startled look on Muddy’s countenance was now replaced by one of intense chagrin. Very plainly, her brother’s perfidious behavior remained, even after the passage of so many years, an acutely painful subject for the good-hearted woman. A sympathetic pang coursed through my bosom at the sight of my dear Muddy’s distress. Nevertheless—though loath to occasion her even a modicum of unhappiness—the urgency of the situation demanded that I persist in my interrogation.

Accordingly, I again requested that she seat herself beside me and tell me what she knew of my father’s disappearance. Before she could comply, however, the unmistakable sound of bubbling water could be heard issuing from the pot on the stovetop. Turning from me with a sigh of relief—as though having been granted a welcome reprieve—Muddy proceeded to prepare two mugs of tea in a conspicuously dilatory fashion. After an inordinately protracted interval, she carried the cups to the table, set one down in front of me, then lowered herself onto the facing chair. Several additional delays ensued, while she blew on the steaming beverage—took a few tentative sips—and commented on the potency and flavor of the brew.