There was a loud and urgent pounding on the front door.

“What the hell?” Rebecca said irritably. “What’s the matter with her? Did she go out in the hall for some reason and lock herself out?”

“We have got to get her out of here right now,” George said again.

“Maybe she’s already locked out, and all we have to do is not let her back in. That should be simple enough. We can play loud music until she goes away. Maybe just this once you can play your Huntington’s piece.”

The hammering on the door continued.

“I guess she hasn’t located the doorbell,” Rebecca said, getting to her feet. “Perhaps she has issues with the gendered space of doorbells in terms of women, servants, and bells.”

“Rebecca, listen, I’m serious. We can’t let her figure this out. You don’t want that,” George said as he stood. He opened a dresser drawer and tucked the eyeglasses under some socks, and then he took the envelope containing the engagement photo, which was lying on the dresser beside the framed photograph of the sisters, and he put that in the drawer as well.

“Okay, whatever it is, I want to know. I don’t get where you’re going with this, but first, what do you think Ruth is really doing out there?”

The insistent pounding on the door now sounded really frantic. George and Rebecca went to the door together just as the flush of the toilet heralded the emergence of Ruth from their bathroom by the kitchen. George opened the door in confusion.

“The window!” gasped the unfamiliar woman standing there, her hand still raised in mid-knock. She was breathless.

“What window?” said Rebecca. “What’s wrong?”

“Let me explain—” Ruth began from the bathroom door.

“What?” Rebecca asked her impatiently. “Explain what, Ruth?”

“What are you saying?” George said to the women in the hallway. “Just say it! What window?”

“Your window! Open your window! Hurry! It’s your cat! He could fall! Your cat is out on the ledge!” the woman cried desperately, gesticulating wildly. She pushed Rebecca into the apartment and stepped inside with her. “Now! Go to the window! Look! I could see him from across the street! I didn’t know what else to do!” She took Rebecca roughly by the shoulders and turned her forcibly to face the window.

George whirled around at the same instant. “What do you mean?” Joe Green was strolling back and forth restlessly on the very narrow sill on the other side of the window, mewing silently. The window was open only an inch, as it had been all afternoon, and there was no way he could have slipped out through the narrow space, any more than he could come back into the room that way. He stopped to put his nose to the crack for a moment and then resumed his agitated patrol of the length of the window ledge.

“Christ! How did he get out there!” George rushed across the room and flung the sash up, scooping the little orange cat off the sill in one swift motion.