“It’s nothing,” I managed to say. “Maybe I’m tired. I’ll sit down for a minute or two.”

The room settled down then. I saw her pick up the picture and put it away, and I managed to light a cigarette. I even offered her one, but she refused. “It’s expensive,” she said, “and I’m too old to start. How are you now? Better?”

I got away somehow. I never noticed the little man across the street. It never occurred to me that Hopper would also be on the trail of the Weston girl, and was watching Miss Connor. All I was certain of was that I had solved the mystery, solved it dreadfully, heartbreakingly: Don’s murder, what Bessie knew, the attempt on her life, even her flight—if it had been a flight. I even thought I knew the woman who had met Maud in the playhouse the night she died.

I was shaking as if I had a chill when I got out of the train. Gus noticed it. His face was full of concern as he tucked the rug around me. “Better go to bed when you get back, miss,” he said. “You look kind of shot. I’ll close the windows. Air’s cold tonight.”

I lay back in the seat, my mind going in circles. Margery Stoddard and her children, coming to swim in the playhouse pool. Margery and Maud, telling her she might have to leave the Cloisters, and Margery’s affectionate eyes on her. But there was something else, also. There was Margery on the path, defiant and angry and Bessie unmoved, smoking and listening to her.

For there was no question about it. The photograph Miss Connor had shown me had been of Margery Stoddard. A younger Margery, of course, but the attractive irregular features were hers, the familiar smile. In the picture her hair was blond and blowing about her face, and bearing the two little girls had thickened her figure somewhat. But Marguerite Weston was Margery Stoddard, and I did not know what to do.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I TRIED TO GET control of myself on the way up the hill. I succeeded fairly well, but I was greeted as I entered the house by a wild-eyed Tony who looked at me as if I had done him a personal injury. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded. “I’ve called up every place but the city morgue.”

“I’m sorry. I had business in town.”

“Business! At seven o’clock on a Friday afternoon! Better think up something better than that, Pat.” Then he saw my face. “I’m sorry, darling. I’ve been nearly crazy. You’d ordered the car for three o’clock, and I thought you’d met with an accident.”

I suppose I should have told him. Still, what could he have done? And he had worries enough just then. Bessie had been gone for five days, no word had come from her, and Dwight Elliott had apparently told the police something, for they were trying to locate her.