She moved then and turned back to them as if she had been Betsy Quinn, good hostess, all along, stretched her arm to motion them into a room with an unlit fireplace—unlit but not unlaid—and indicated an easy chair on either side of it. She herself took a seat on the small cream-linen sofa facing the fireplace.

Tom said nothing, looking at Jury to start the questioning.

He did. “Mrs. Quinn, we know it’s very hard for you right now, but it’s important to us to ask you about your daughter. You see, there’s at least one other death that appears to touch on Moira’s own.”

“You mean that French nurse that worked at Summerplace when Moira was there. She had a funny name, French for Madeline, my Moira said. I don’t know much about her, but—”

Jury held up his hand. “No, no. It’s Moira we wanted to know about.”

“Who would ever do such a thing? The dear lass.” She looked down at her overlapped hands.

Jury said, “That’s what we were hoping you might help us with. Had Moira been having trouble with anyone in particular? A man, perhaps?”

Betsy Quinn looked from Jury to Tom, eyes wide, as if in surprise. “You think it was Moira they meant to kill? Oh, surely not. Surely the killer was just a bad shot.”

Jury and Tom exchanged a glance. Then Tom said, “I don’t quite take your meaning, Mrs. Quinn.”

“Well, it must have been the other girl.”

“What other girl?”

“Not ‘girl,’ either of them. But the other holy duster. She usually worked beside Moira. Name’s—Glynis something. And the ladies said she was there, too.”

Jury, already lost, was lost again. “The ladies?”

“The embroiderers, the Holy Dusters. You know.”

Holy Dusters. Embroiderers. The secular seemed more and more swallowed up by myth. Or at least the mundane overtaken by metaphor. All Jury could think of was Heart of Darkness, with the little woman sitting by the entranceway knitting black wool.

But Tom Brownell, once surprised, refused to be surprised again, and said, calmly, “So you’re saying that this other woman is the one the shooter aimed to hit and he shot Moira by mistake? I’m sorry to put it that way, but that is what you mean, isn’t it?” When Betsy Quinn nodded sadly, Tom said, “But do you know why anyone would want to shoot her?”

“No. No more than someone would want to shoot my Moira.”

“Mrs. Quinn,” said Jury, “your Moira got that job with the Summerstons because you were their cook, right? And you knew they were looking for someone to take care of Gerald Summerston?” He thought that sounded better than “wanted another maid.”

She nodded, the handkerchief still bundled against her mouth.