I imagine Mr. Hopper pricked up his ears at that.

“You’re not certain?”

“I didn’t stop to look. I was kind of—well, I’d had one or two drinks and I’d quarreled with a girl. I wasn’t paying much attention.”

“Who was driving it? A man or a woman?”

Larry didn’t know. All he was certain of was the time, and that was only approximate. Nevertheless, both Hopper and Jim Conway agreed on one probability: that Don Morgan, on the night of Bessie’s party, had for some reason tried to get into the Cloisters, and that by pure chance I had fallen on him.

Hopper had his own explanation. “The fellow was hard up, we know that,” he said. “And everybody knows about that jewelry of Mrs. Wainwright’s. She’s supposed to leave it lying about, isn’t she?”

Jim shook his head. “Morgan wasn’t a burglar. And remember this: whoever got into the house had Evans’s keys. Apparently Morgan wasn’t even in the neighborhood then.”

I had a long talk with Dwight Elliott on the terrace that night. He had been staying at the Cloisters ever since Maud’s message to him, but so far he had not seen her. He looked his full age that evening. I felt sorry for him, dapper in his dinner clothes, his long nervous fingers playing with his brandy glass.

“She didn’t say why she wanted me?”

“No. Just to get you.”

“Nothing had happened to upset her? No letters or anything?”

“She’d read her mail and the papers. Hilda said she was perfectly normal when she left her.”

I left him sitting there. I don’t think he even noticed that I had gone.

The next morning we had the astounding news about the cemetery. It was Nora, the housemaid who looked after my rooms and me, who told me about it. She looked horrified as she put down my breakfast tray.

“That man’s been around again, miss,” she said.

“What man?” I asked drowsily.

“The one who killed Mr. Morgan. He’s been in the cemetery.”

“And a good place for him,” I said. “I hope he stays there.” Then the full import of what she had said dawned on me. I sat up in bed.

“What about the cemetery? Was somebody hurt there?”

“No, but it’s all knocked about,” she said with unction. “Tombstones turned over and flower beds trampled. They say it’s a sight.”

Half an hour later I was there. Jim Conway and two of the local policemen had already arrived, as well as Dr. Leland, the rector of St. Mark’s. There were others, of course; people like myself, anxious and angry, or merely stupefied. For vandals, or a vandal, had certainly been there. Several small headstones had been pried off their bases and lay on the ground, urns had been overturned and broken and the windows in a large stone vault had been broken. My own graves were untouched, but the useless vindictive destruction was sickening.

Jim saw me and came over. “I’m glad your lot is all right, Pat,” he said. “I knew you’d be worried. It’s crazy, isn’t it?”