At Pike & Sons, policemen and a detective crowded the small store. They had all eaten lunch together, and the smell of onions and sausage was overwhelming. Their embarrassment led them to be highly courteous to Andy, who had dissolved into tears. It was as if her spine had melted. She was flopped forward on a now empty jewelry case, silently shaking with horror that didn’t seem to be ending.

“Just, just, just calm down,” her father was saying. And then, not helpfully, “I told you to calm down!”

“Miss Pike,” Detective Collins said, speaking into his sleeve (he found his own breath abominable), “if you can take a slow breath, just one slow breath for me. Good. Thank you. Now, I need to know, did anything unusual happen to you today, before the robbery?”

She sniffled. “Like what?”

“Well, did anyone unusual come into the store? Was anything out of place when you came in to work?”

She shook her head.

“Then this might be a little more sophisticated than we knew. So don’t blame yourself. But just think for me. Outside the store—forget the store for a moment—have any strangers spoken to you recently? Done anything to ingratiate themselves into your life?”

She blinked, and dabbed at her eyes. “A stranger?”

“Lee Duncan, next!” He bounded onto the stage.

The house lights went up momentarily, for the judges to introduce themselves. Each in turn stood up, announced his or her associations, then sat. Mrs. Franklin Geary, head of the Liberty Loan Committee. Christopher Sims of the Institute for Speech Benevolence. Charles Wollbert, associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Speech Education. Andrew Mellon Tonkovich from the Creel Committee on Public Information. Then, standing last, Mr. George Barnes.

Barnes’s self-effacement when speaking was just slightly more overt than the rest. “George Barnes, of Hollywood, California. Motion-picture director and producer. Betsy and the Burglar, Traditions of the Tartans, The Woodsman and the Fall, and so on.”

Lee straightened. “I’m sorry,” he said. “George Barnes?”

“Yes, sir. We look forward to—”

“Betsy’s Fatal Slip?”

Barnes grinned. “Oh, you know my work?”

“On Betsy’s Fatal Slip, you were the cameraman.”

Barnes made a sort of a clucking deep in his throat. It was the sound of a fish being caught on a hook. With his cheeks burning, with a sense of righteousness, Lee reached into the pocket of his trousers. He withdrew something tattered and folded and yet still highly recognizable: one half of an eight of diamonds.

By all reason, Barnes should have sat then, but he did not. This was an entirely new job for him, one with a measure of respectability that, when drunk, he claimed he would kill to keep. He seemed to have both something to say and no way to say it.

Lee said, “I’m a fan of yours. Your work taught me the spirit of fair play. If that sounds reasonable.”