She tried to sit up, but just then Jan came in, carrying a small glass of brandy and some water. She looked worried, but her small head was high and defiant.

“You’re not getting out until you’re able to go,” she said. “Here, drink this. It will help.”

Eileen drank, taking small ladylike sips, and Jan looked at Hilda.

“I’m sorry, but you’d better let me handle this,” she said. “I was taking her to see Doctor Brooke, but he was out and she got faint. That’s all.”

Thus dismissed Hilda went up the stairs. She prayed devoutly that Eileen would be out of the house before Marian and her mother got back. But the family would have to work out its own problems. She had one of her own. If, as she now fully believed, someone was trying to get rid of Mrs. Fairbanks, either directly or by indirection, it was up to her to shut off every possible method. As she expected, the closet door was locked, and a careful examination of Carlton’s behind it revealed nothing but his clothes in orderly rows and his shoes lined neatly on the floor. The register in the floor in Mrs. Fairbanks’s room, however, did not close entirely. She found a screwdriver in the storeroom as well as a piece of pasteboard, and was in the act of fitting the latter into place when she heard the car drive in. After that there was a moment or two of quiet below. Then she heard Marian coming up the stairs and a moment later she slammed and locked her door.

Hilda shrugged. It was trouble, but it was not hers. She was screwing down the grille over the register when she heard Jan in the hall outside.

“I must speak to you, Mother. I must.”

There was no immediate answer. Then Marian’s door flew open, and her voice shook with rage when she spoke.

“How dare you, Jan? How dare you do a thing like this to me?”

“I couldn’t help it, Mother. She was sick.”

“Sick! I don’t believe it.”

“She was. Ask Miss Adams. Ask Grandmother.”

“She can put anything over on your grandmother. As for you, forever hanging around her—”

“Listen, Mother. She telephoned me. She doesn’t want Father to know yet, but—she’s going to have a baby.”

There was a brief stunned silence. Then Marian began to laugh. It was a terrifying laugh, and Hilda got quickly to her feet. Before she reached the door, however, Marian had vanished into her room and the laughter, wild and hysterical, was still going on.

Jan was standing in the hall. She was trembling, and Hilda put an arm around her.

“Never mind,” she said. “Don’t worry, child. She’ll get over it.”

“I didn’t think she’d care,” said Jan blankly, and went down the stairs again.

That evening, Wednesday, June the eleventh, Marian left the house, bag and baggage. Nobody saw her go except Ida, who carried down her luggage. She left while the family was at dinner, and she told nobody where she was going. And only a few nights later her mother was murdered as she lay asleep in her bed.