“Oh, don’t be silly, Tom.” Her voice went vague, uncertain. “I just have a sense that there’s some kind of trouble around . . .” There was puzzlement as well as worry in the eyes she turned to him. “It’s the smell!” she said. Until she said the words she hadn’t realized the truth of her statement. The repulsive scent brought out of the trees by the wind seemed aimed at her, touched some primal response of dread she could not identify or name. “Let’s go back to the house!” she said suddenly.

“Hey,” Tom Laidlaw said, “you’re shaking!” Anxiety turned his mouth down. “I’ve never seen you like this, Dee!”

“I’ve never felt like this!” she said, with an annoyance addressed not at the man so much as at the strange feelings suddenly churning inwardly.

He spoke heartily. “We’re almost there. I’ll drive you down for coffee and one of Elvira’s omelettes. Fix you right up!”

“I want to go home,” his wife said softly. “I don’t want to see the Tintons this morning!”

Tom Laidlaw’s back went up. “You’re being damn silly, Dee! The hell with the smell—something died in the woods, is all. No reason for hysterics, is it? You go on back if you want. I’m getting the jeep, and going to the cafe.”

Deirdre Laidlaw uttered a deep sigh and put her hand on her husband’s elbow. “I am being hysterical, aren’t I? Sorry. I’m sure you’re right about the stink. I keep forgetting that so much of Yarkie is really nature in the raw. We don’t have to see the Tintons anyway, do we? Just get the car and leave.”

“Exactly.”

They walked on in silence. Deirdre Laidlaw said something under her breath.

“What?”

“I still wonder why they didn’t answer the phone.”

Tom Laidlaw’s voice thickened with irritation. “Because they want to sleep late, or took off for Boston—how the hell do I know?”

There was challenge in his wife’s turning face. “All I said was I hope there’s no trouble there.”

“What kind of trouble could there be?”

“That awful quarrel in front of everybody . . .”

“None of our damn business, eh?”

“It is when they keep our damn jeep,” Deirdre Laidlaw said irritably.

“Well, there it is,” her husband pointed ahead. “Safe and sound.”

Their car was waiting under an elm tree, and the wind had driven leaves in a thick layer over the hood of the engine and the roof. “Leafed in,” the woman laughed.

Deirdre Laidlaw got into the jeep on the passenger side, and tapped the driver’s wheel with an unpainted fingernail. “Come on, then. I want that omelette you promised.”

The man got in and slammed the door, liking the solid sound of the well-­fitted metal. Then he asked his wife, “What’s that?”

“What’s what?”