She was tired and her feet ached when at six o’clock she got back to the house, going directly to the kitchen. William was on the back porch, relaxing in the summer sun, and Maggie was baking a cake. She turned a red face from the oven when Hilda drew a chair to the kitchen table and sat down. But some of Maggie’s suspicions had died in the last few days. She even offered her a cup of tea.

Hilda, however, was definitely off tea, at least for a time.

“I’d like a glass of water,” she said. “Then I want to talk about Ida.”

“I’m not talking about Ida,” Maggie said stiffly.

“If anyone thinks she got that stuff here in this house—”

“I’m not asking about her death. That’s for the police. It’s just this. Have you any idea why she carried those blankets out to Amos?”

“No. He didn’t need them.”

“Can you remember what happened that day? It was the day after Mrs. Fairbanks was killed, wasn’t it?”

Maggie considered this.

“You know how she was that morning. She was so bad I sent her up to rest. She came down later, and that was when Amos says she carried out the blankets. I didn’t see her myself. All I know is she didn’t eat any lunch. She left when we were sitting down.”

Hilda drank her water and went out to the stable. To her annoyance Amos, in his shirt sleeves, was smoking a pipe inside the garage. He was reading the paper, his chair tilted back. He looked up when he saw her.

“Anything I can do for you, miss?”

He grinned with his usual slyness, and Hilda regarded him with disfavor.

“You can come up to the loft with me,” she said coldly. “And don’t smirk at me, I don’t like it.”

Thus reduced, Amos followed her up the stairs. There was still light enough to see around, and to her shocked surprise she found the entire place had been swept and put in order.

“Who did this?” she said sharply.

He grinned.

“I did,” he said. “Anything to say about it, Miss Policewoman? Any reason why I can’t clean the place I live in?”

She ignored that, looking around her carefully. She had had very little hope at any time, but she disliked giving up. Amos was grinning again, pleased at her discomfiture.

“That isn’t funny,” she said. “I want some answers, and if I don’t get them the police will. When you cleaned this place did you find anything that didn’t belong? That you hadn’t seen here before?”

The mention of the police sobered him.

“Nothing new. Only the birdcage was on the floor. It used to be in the cupola, when Ida kept her bats and things in it. Wrapped it in a cloth, she did. I threw it out.”

“Oh!” she said blankly. “You knew it was Ida, did you?”

“Well, when a woman gets an old birdcage and a net and keeps climbing at night into that tower up there, I didn’t think she was after butterflies, and that’s a fact.”