“I just made it,” she said. “That damned stocking of mine tore. Right in front of all those policemen too. That’s why I fainted.”

I eyed her.

“You didn’t faint,” I said. “I watched you.”

“Of course not, but with you being completely dumb what could I do? I had to get away before it fell out.”

I hope I was patient. She says now that I exhibited all my father’s vicious temper plus the worst traits of Aunt Henrietta, who was the family harridan. But at last I got it out of her.

She had had the knife all along.

“What do you suppose kept me on the stairs?” she demanded. “There it was stuck under the edge of the carpet. What could I do but sit on it?”

“You might have given it to the police,” I suggested.

“To the police? Larry’s knife! Are you crazy?”

I could feel myself going cold all over. And it was Larry’s knife. She had known it by the part of the handle she could see: the moth-eaten hairy handle of the old hunting knife that he had carted around with him on hunting trips for years. After he married he still kept it, in the room he called his gun room, downstairs in his own house. “Anyone could have got at it, of course. The glass doors of the closet were never locked. Just the same …”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Mother said sharply. “He didn’t kill her. If he had, would he have used his own knife and left it there? That knife was meant to be found, and by the police. Anyhow, why should he? He liked her.”

“Look, Mother,” I said, lowering my voice, “what have you done with it?”

“I’ve hidden it,” she said craftily.

“And how long will it stay hidden?” I inquired. “With servants all over the place, and as much privacy for us as canary birds.”

Mother smirked. There is no other word for it.

“It’s entirely safe,” she said. “It’s in the tank of the toilet in my bathroom.”

“Look, Mother,” I said patiently, “you never read crime books. You never read any books, for that matter. But toilet tanks are the universal hiding places for all lethal weapons. If they ever search this house—”

“Why on earth would they search this house?” she demanded indignantly. “Who do they think did it? We all have alibis. I sat beside that idiot of a Mayor for hours. Anyhow, who would come up here to my bathroom? If anyone needed …”

I didn’t say anything. What was the use? I went into her bathroom and lifted the porcelain top of the tank. The knife was there, and it was Larry’s all right. I didn’t touch it. I just put the lid back on. I felt dizzy.

“Nobody will find it there,” Mother said, “and tomorrow we will get rid of it.”

I don’t remember saying anything. I had just seen Mother’s stockings. They were lying on the floor, and one of them was torn to ribbons. I picked it up. There was a little blood on it from the knife—not much, but enough to make me shiver.