O’Brien came that evening. He was a cocky young fellow who immediately announced that he would like a supper and a thermos of coffee left out for him at night. Also he produced an automatic which he handled with extreme casualness. “You folks’ll be all right when I’m around,” he said cheerfully. “Only you’d better have the help let me know when they’re out late. I’m apt to shoot first and ask questions afterward.”

I was not greatly impressed. He wore a cap and crepe-soled shoes, and my own feeling was that he looked more like a first-class burglar than anything else. But he was to prove his mettle later on. Poor O’Brien! He lay in the hospital for months that winter, with a bullet through his chest.

“Just leave it to me,” he said, the first night after he had looked over the house. “I’m partial to ham sandwiches, if you get what I mean; but not too damn partial. You might tell Frenchie that.”

Nevertheless, I slept better after that for knowing he was on guard.

Otherwise things went on much as usual for a week or so. Bessie was still at the Cloisters. I think she was putting pressure on Tony for a larger allowance, now that he was Maud’s heir; but she had what Jim later called an ace in the hole which she still had not used. Probably she was not sure of him or of what his reaction would be. And Tony was in town most of the time, for Maud’s death, throwing control of the business into his hands, was being furiously resented by the Wainwright crowd.

I was clearing up odds and ends of my work, preparatory to leaving. I knew it would have to come. Bessie would go, and I could not stay there without her. That phase of my life was over.

I carried on as best I could. The house was quiet. People called, left cards, drove away again. Mrs. Partridge collapsed and was ordered to bed for a day or two. The horses stood unridden in the stables. Pierre cooked in his customary fashion, but without his heart in his work, and at night O’Brien, looking vastly important, paraded through the house.

I had rather expected that Margery Stoddard would come over to see me. She was nearer my age than Maud’s, and we had become friendly. But she was laid up for a few days. Bill Sterling, after seeing Mrs. Partridge one day, reported that it was nothing serious. “Nerves,” he said. “Misses the children but won’t bring them back. That’s one advantage of being poor. Kidnapping’s out.”

He was cheerful that day, although he said he still had the little detective to carry around and was thinking of adopting him. “He’ll be a pretty fair doctor when I’m through with him,” he said, grinning. “Had to help me cut off a leg back in the hills the other day. Didn’t faint until it was over. Says he’s going into a sanitarium when this case is over.”