One thing he clung to. We had only one criminal. Don’s murder and Maud’s were connected, although he didn’t know how. Personally he wanted to go back to Don’s murder and start from there. “There’s one name not on this list,” he said. “That’s the Weston girl’s. Maybe she’s gone down in the world. She may be a maid around here somewhere. Or maybe she’s gone up. In that case she might be anybody. But I’ve got a hunch that when we find her we’ll have something.”

It came down to that in the end. What he wanted me to do was to find the Connor woman in town and get her to talk. “Although I’m warning you she’s a hard nut to crack,” he said. “Some of the newspaper boys have been after her, and she’s pretty leery. But she was in that office when the Weston girl was there. You can bet she remembers her.”

It was the chance to save Tony that made me finally agree, and that night I told him that I had some business in the city the next day. He offered to drive me in, but I said I would take a later train. He nodded, and he stood—we were in the upper hall—and looked down at me with stark misery in his eyes. “How long is Bessie going to stay?” he asked.

“She hasn’t said.”

“I wish to God she’d go,” he said heavily. “I can’t stand it much longer, Pat.”

“I’ll have to go too, Tony. You know that.”

“Not yet, Pat. Give me a little time, darling.”

I suppose he knew about the bullets by that time, but he did not mention them. As I look back I can see how each of us was trying to help the other, and what a stupid mess we made of it. He must have known that he was close to arrest for the attack on Bessie, if nothing worse. But he smiled down at me as he said good night. “We’re fighting it out, Pat,” he said. “I can stand it, if you’ll stand by.”

I went in to town the next morning. The old train was familiar—the dusty smell of the plush seats, the river cold and slate gray under the November sky, the untidy tenements as we neared the city. Just so had I traveled for six years, until the day in June when I had walked into Maud Wainwright’s boudoir at the Cloisters and found her there, big and smiling.

The conductor recognized me as he took my ticket.

“Like old times, seeing you,” he said. “Understand you’ve been having a lot of trouble.”

I looked up at him, his kind old eyes, his shabby uniform. I had known him since my childhood, and I am afraid my chin quivered, for he leaned over and patted my shoulder. “Just forget about it,” he said. “After all, they’re not your folks, Miss Pat. It’s money that brings trouble. It always has and it always will.”