It was as she was coming back between the hydrangeas that she saw, over the low fence, a girl with long black hair and red lips, standing holding the cat in her arms.

Mrs. Macdonald hesitated. The way the girl held the cat was benign and pleasing to the eye. She had never seen Julie Sawyer, let alone Terry Purvis, hold the cat in this way. It was the manner in which cats should be held.

The girl was looking at her.

The girl said, "You're Mrs. Macdonald."

Mrs. Macdonald felt threatened again. She tried to frown, but she was only nervous. She was sixty-five, but appeared much older. She secretly thought the proximity of Julie and Terry had worn her out. On their other side, the house was empty. Another aggravated neighbor might have assisted Mrs. Macdonald.

"You feed the cat," said the girl. Then she said, "I came out because of the noise."

Noise she had said. Not, as Julie had, Music. It was even now clearly to be heard.

Mrs. Macdonald said, cautiously, "It's not your cup of tea, then."

"Oh, no. I like Prokofiev, and Rachmaninov. Mozart."

The cat was purring. Mrs. Macdonald reached over the low fence and stroked the cat's silken head. The cat, delighted, purred louder.

"I asked her once," said Mrs. Macdonald, clandestinely, "if she'd turn the volume down. But she didn't want to."

"I don't know them," said Ruth. "I was looking for the lady who was here before."

Mrs. Macdonald's troubled heart skipped a beat. Before Julie and Terry, her friend Mrs. Weeks had lived in the house. But Mrs. Weeks had died one afternoon, sitting in her quiet summer garden.

"Mrs. Weeks?" asked Mrs. Macdonald.

But the girl disappointed her now. "No. Mrs. Watt."

"Oh, dear. It sounds as if you've misremembered the address."

"Yes," said Ruth.

"I shouldn't," said Mrs. Macdonald. Her lined, papery face blushed hotly. "I should be a bit careful," she said. "I perhaps shouldn't say this. But if you don't know them, Miss Sawyer and Mr. Purvis, it might not be—what you'd like."

And then she was mortally afraid, for the girl might be a liar, and a bit unbalanced, as Julie Sawyer seemed to be, and she might tell them all she, Mrs. Macdonald, had said, and then—

"But it's not my business," blundered Mrs. Macdonald.

"You feed the cat," Ruth said, once more.

"Oh, the cat's lovely. They call her something funny. But I call her Victoria. She's so like my last one. My Victoria Plum, I used to say. So glossy and plump, she was. This one's rather thin. But you're still my Victoria, aren't you?"

The cat, amused by its second name, swam like a snake from Ruth's shoulder, and alighted on the fence, where it raised its tail like a lamp for all the world.

Suddenly the music fell down like a lift.