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"Did you hear all that thumping and moaning last night?" Alma was asking at breakfast. "The spirits were very disturbed."

I had to admit that something was disturbed, but I had thought it was the weather. The storm had raged most of the night, gradually exhausting itself in the wee hours. It had dawned gray--if one could say it had dawned at all--with the rain dying away to a misty drizzle. It was a good day for a funeral.

"I thought I heard sobbing in the night," Maybelle declared, looking around at us conspiratorially, as if the unhappy one might be listening. "But I didn't get up to see who it was."

"You missed a lot of rapping and moaning at the seance," I told her. "I suppose that's what started everything."

"Ohh--I'm glad I didn't stay up for it, then," she said with a shiver.

I didn't say anything about it, but I thought I had heard sobbing, too. But nobody called my name, so I had not gotten up to investigate it. If Diana wanted to tell me something, she would have to be more specific. Alma looked at her watch. The late gray dawn had not prompted us to early rising, and it was already after nine.

"My goodness, look at the time," she exclaimed. "It's after nine and the minister promised to come promptly at eleven. Paul, would you be a good boy and drive into town to pick up the flowers? They're supposed to be ready at nine-thirty." Paul grunted. I thought he seemed overly preoccupied, but it was a day for preoccupation.

"How about driving in with me?" he asked.

"I'd better not," I told him. "It's getting late. Besides, I'm expecting a phone call from the lawyer."

Reluctantly he got up to run Alma's errand. "Now you hurry right back," she admonished him. "We want to be ready for the service as soon as the minister gets here. He has other things to do, you know. It's not like we were his own parishioners and had a claim on him."

Paul went to get his coat and was soon off. But fifteen minutes later I was surprised to find him back at the hotel, upset and bedraggled.

"What happened to you?"

He was cursing and stomping to shake the water off. "The damn front wheel fell off! Just as I turned into the highway. It's a wonder nobody was coming. I went all over that road before I ended up in the ditch."

"Are you hurt?"

"No--luckily for my insurance company I wasn't going very fast, but it sure gave me a roughing up."

"Did you have your seat belt on?"

"I refuse to say I had any sort of premonition," he said with annoyance. "Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. This time I did."

"Is the car badly damaged?"

"I can't tell--I'm in the ditch and can't get out without a wrecker."

"But why would the wheel fall off?"

"I don't know. The car's on the axle, and the wheel's who knows where. Maybe the lugs came unscrewed. I can't remember when I checked them last."

I remembered the flowers. "You'd better take the station wagon. You can stop at the garage and have them send a wrecker out. But for heaven's sake, don't forget the flowers."

So he drove off in the station wagon, cursing his bad luck.

He was back in plenty of time with the flowers. Alma had set up the place for the memorial service in the lounge. The two sprays of white gladioli and chrysanthemums gave it and oddly bridal air, but Alma avoided an institutional look by arranging the chairs as naturally as possible in a circle. After all, there were only the six of us, besides the minister.

Rev. Thornberry greeted the ladies, whom he knew by sight. Alma had insisted upon Episcopalian for the clerical collar and from a guess that Elsa was least likely to be an Episcopalian.

"Is there anything in particular you want for the service?" he asked when we had relieved him of his coat and ushered him into the lounge.

"No. You've probably read the papers and have an idea of the troubles we've had out here," Alma said. (I don't know why, but Rev. Thornberry assumed she was in charge, and none of us challenged it.) "We hardly knew Diana, or not at all--except her husband, of course--so we thought the simplest possible ceremony would be best."

"Yes," he said. "A memorial service is, after all, for the living."

"And for Diana, of course," Alma said with authority.

"I beg your pardon.?"

"The service is for Diana. We want her to rest quietly, and secure in the knowledge that we remember her."

"Of course." Rev. Thornberry was dubious, but he obviously was not wishing to get into a theological debate.

"So is there a standard service we can use?"

Rev. Thornberry answered by holding up his book of services.

"Then we might as well take our places and begin," Alma said. "If you'll all just--"

At that moment a slim lamp table beside one of the chairs tipped over and spilled its lamp with a loud clatter.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Rev. Thornberry said, since he had been the one standing closest to the table. "Did I do that?"

"Oh, don't worry about it," Alma assured him. "It happens all the time around here. We were just talking about what a night we had last night."

"Tables fall over all the time?" he asked, as if he hoped he hadn't heard her correctly.

"Oh, all kinds of things. This is a very agitated place, what with an unsolved murder and now a suicide. You can guess how unsettled that would make the ectoplasmic variations."

Mildred cut Alma off before she could go on embarrassing the nonplused Rev. Thornberry. She was righting the table and setting the lamp back on it. "No harm done. Nothing's broken. Oh, here's a Bible."

"Wait a minute, Mildred," Alma commanded. "It might be a sign. Keep the place. Maybe it's the text Diana wants for her service."

It was one of those cheap Bibles that the Gideons place in hotel rooms. Mildred carefully picked it up and handed it to Rev. Thornberry open to the place where it had fallen open. The rest of us were standing around trying to look as embarrassed and sympathetic as possible for a point of theology of psychic experience which he obviously didn't agree with but didn't want to discuss, under the circumstances.

"Has Diana been sending you signs like this?"

"Oh, yes, ever since Cynthia arrived, hasn't she, Cynthia?"

I agreed reluctantly. "Diana and I were identical twins, it seems, though we never met. There have been a whole series of experiences that seem to be communication from Diana. Do your religious beliefs have anything to say about that?"

"Well, uh--" he groped for a politely non-committal answer.

"I've not had any experience of my own, so I suppose I can't judge other people's experiences. Of course, many instances of spiritualist communication have been proven to be conscious or unconscious frauds."

"Well, it can't be denied that I had no reason to suspect a murder except for the communication I got from Diana. We would never have known where to look for the body."

"But what's the passage?" Alma asked. After all, she had been only stating her belief, not requiring his. "Could it be a message?"

He looked down at the open Bible and smiled. "It doesn't seem likely. It's Chapter 19 of Judges. I can't think of anything less to the point."

"What passage is that?"

"It's the story about the Levite and his concubine. She is violated by some men from the tribe of Benjamin, so he cuts here body into twelve pieces and sends a piece to each of the twelve tribes."

"How awful! You mean there are stories like that in the Bible? He killed his wife just because she had been violated?"

"It doesn't say he killed her. Actually it isn't clear from the text how she died."

"I wonder if that could mean something," Maybelle said.

"I don't know why it should have to," Rev. Thornberry said.

"After all, if a book falls open, it has to fall open at some passage. I know that our great-grandfathers used that as a kind of divination--opening the Bible and sticking your finger on a passage with your eyes closed--but I don't suppose many people do that any more."

"Can't we get on with the service?" Paul broke in. "It's not fair to Rev. Thornberry to keep him standing around."

So we took our places, and Rev. Thornberry led us in a simple service. Mildred played the hotel's little portable organ, and we sang a few of the limited selection of hymns in the hotel's old all-purpose song books. It was a satisfactory service once we got into it. The ladies seemed satisfied, though Paul didn't look happy.

"Hey," I whispered to him during our last hymn, "cheer up. After all, didn't he say a memorial service is for the living?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I guess this isn't my day."

CHAPTER 23

I don't know whether the Reverend Thornberry had planned to stay for lunch, but once he became interested in the ghostly drama of Seneca Lodge, he could hardly tear himself away. The ladies plied him with sandwiches and every tidbit they could think of about the strange events of the past week or so. Could he explain it? Did he have any theories? He didn't. I feel sure he was inclined to think we were putting him off, though that explanation did not jibe with the seriousness of the occasion. He might have passed it off as the overactive imaginations of some dotty old ladies, but they made sure I told my part in their adventure. Even Paul was drafted to give testimony.

"I wouldn't have believed it myself, if I hadn't been here and heard it with my own ears." he said.

"It's an interesting story," Rev. Thornberry opined. "I don't know what to make of it."

"Neither did I," I confessed. "I never had any interest or belief in the occult before this past two weeks."

"What she means," Alma broke in, "Is that if you just had me to relate this preposterous tale you could discount it, because I'm obviously gaga. But coming from her--"

"I didn't mean that at all," I protested.

She patted my hand. "Of course you did. And why do you think we're dragging you in as our witness? Don't you think we get a kick out of being proven right once in a while?"

"I must say I've never had any personal contact with spiritualism," the Reverend said. "From what I've heard, though, It struck me how little the dead have to say that is worth all the fuss of summoning them. But I don't want to sound dogmatic about it. If spiritual contact can provide concrete clues that will clear up the mystery of Mrs. Lawrence's death, then that would be the real test."

"But it already has," Paul protested.

"If that is the end of it," Alma muttered.

As the minister was leaving, the wrecker arrived, and Paul went down to see about the damage to his car. It turned out to be minor, but the car had to be towed into town to have the lug posts unbent and the wheels realigned.

I went to my room to lie down for a while, but I no sooner got there than there was a knock on my door. "Who is it?" I called out, fearing it was going to be Alma, but it was Mildred.

"Did you think the service went well?" she asked.

"Yes, I did, and I wanted to thank you for playing the organ. The hymns were just the right touch."

"You don't think they were--well--a little corny?"

"Oh, I don't suppose they were what I would have chosen if we had a proper hymnal to choose from, but just being able to sing together was comforting."

"Do you think Paul was pleased?"

"I think he was, though his accident made him a bit distracted." I thought about him for a moment. "It's funny, isn't it? Diana is beginning to seem real to me, but I have a hard time thinking of Paul as her husband. He's the one who ought to be in charge."

"I suppose he's looking for the proper funeral when he gets home," Mildred suggested.

We talked some more about the service and about Diana. But I was beginning to be aware that she had not come to my room to chit-chat about the service. She kept moving nervously between the desk and the window, occasionally stopping to look out at the leaden sky.

"Would you like to drive into town?" she said at last. "We could go window shopping."

"It's hardly the day for it," I said. It's really not much of a day for anything."

"Don't you think it will clear up? I really do think it's brighter."

I looked out, though there wasn't much of a sky to see under the veranda ceiling. "I think you're optimistic about that," I told her.

"It would be nicer if they had a shopping mall somewhere around here," she said. "People come to the lodge to get away from it all, but there's not much choice for people who need to get away from the lodge."

"Are you wanting to get away, or do you think I should?"

"Everybody sees right through me," she said with a little chuckle. She sat down at the head of the bed and clasped the bedpost. "I just think that one can be too long in this place, especially under the circumstances."

"Are you thinking of leaving?"

"No--well, of course, before too long. But I was thinking of you."

"But this is my home now."

"I didn't mean for good. I feel like somebody with a front row seat in an interesting drama. I'm right there, but I'm not really involved. I'm just a spectator. I have to keep reminding myself that these aren't actors, but real people involved. People who need an intermission."

"Well, thank you," I said, "but I just turned down Paul's offer, so it doesn't seem right to go into town with somebody else. This is the kind of day to stay indoors."

She continued to stare out the window. "Strange isn't it? We can go for weeks needing rain, and then we have one rainy day and it seems as if it has been raining forever."

I had been standing at the window looking at the gray day when I was suddenly aware of something moving on the lawn. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"Didn't you see it? There was somebody down there by the boathouse."

Mildred leaned forward from her perch on the bed to see farther off to the left. "I don't see anything."

"I'm sure I saw somebody."

Mildred stood up and came to my side. "One of the girls?"

"I don't think so, though I just got a glimpse. There. Isn't the boathouse door open a little?"

"Maybe it's catching the wind," she said.

The boathouse door opened, and a dark figure came out, looked up toward the hotel, and ran into the woods.

"There is someone there, I--" but when I turned to Mildred she had turned away. She looked when I called out, but by that time the figure was gone.

She peered out along the shore. "Where?"

"It ran into the woods."

"A hiker?"

"I'm beginning to think a prowler. Hikers don't sneak around like that."

"Maybe we should call--oh!" There wasn't anybody to call. Jeff and Paul were both away from the hotel.

"The police?" I finished for her.

"Do you think they'd come?"

"They might be annoyed for just a hiker. Maybe we'd better see for ourselves."

"Oh dear, if it's a prowler--"

"In the middle of the day? It can't be too serious. But you don't have to come." I started to put on a jacket.

"You can't go alone," she insisted and darted out of the room. She was back in a moment with a jacket and two old golf putters which had somehow gravitated to the maid's closet. "Just in case," she said.

We went out the door at the far end of the hall. At the top of the lawn, I saw the figure again. It ran from the woods into the boathouse. Dressed in a dark coat and pants, with a knitted cap like mariners wear, it was hardly more than a shadow. I couldn't even say for sure whether it was male or female.

We crept to the boathouse, I in the lead and Mildred a few steps behind, with our clubs ready to protect ourselves of we were attacked. At the door, I stopped and called out: "We saw you go in, so we know you're in there!"

No answer. I called a second and third time and then gingerly pushed open the door with the club. "Stay back," I warned Mildred. I pushed the door all the way back against the wall to make sure nobody was standing behind it. Then I peered inside. There was not much light inside with the water doors closed, but there wasn't much to the boathouse, and what I could see was empty.

"That's odd; I don't see anybody," I said.

"Are you sure they came in here?"

"Well, of course. Didn't you see him?"

"What did he look like?" she asked after a while.

What could I say? It was someone in dark clothes, a shadow.

"Look at the floor!" I exclaimed. the flagstones were wet, as if recently scrubbed, right where I had once had the vision of the body, and the water in the boat slip looked much darker and murkier than it should have. "What's going on here?"

Mildred, not having any opinion, didn't offer any. She went around ad peered into the boats on the far side. I looked into the boats on the near side, but there was no other place to hide. Steep, narrow stairs led up to a loft over the near end of the boathouse, but there was no place to hide there, either.

"Oh, be careful," Mildred cried out as I climbed far enough to peer around. "He might be dangerous."

"I thought you didn't see anybody," I said.

She sounded apologetic. "Well--you said you did."

"And I would have sworn to it. But what would they want in here? There's nothing but the boats, and it would be too much trouble to steal them during the day, since the only way out of the lake is up past the hotel."

Mildred had gone back outside, and now she stepped onto the jetty. "Maybe they had a boat of their own."

We walked out onto the jetty, but there was nothing to see on the water. The wind was still whipping up the waves, and the heavy overcast and mist obscured the far ends of the lake. "You didn't see anybody at all, either time?" I asked Mildred.

"No, nothing. But I wasn't looking very hard." I supposed that meant she didn't rally believe me.

We walked out to the end of the jetty, and when I turned, I got another shock. "Alma!" I shouted. She was sitting on the roots of a large sycamore on the shore of the lake, a little way beyond the boathouse. It was an unbelievable thing for her to be there on such a raw day like this with nothing more than a sweater, because it looked from where I was standing as if she were reading. When I called out she looked up and smiled at me and waved. It was an extraordinary feeling, because I was suddenly overwhelmed with the recurrent sensation of deja vu.

"What about Alma?" Mildred asked.

"She's sitting over there, under that tree," I exclaimed.

Mildred turned to look over at the shore and then back at me, bewildered. "Where?" she asked.

"There under that big white tree. Don't you see her?"

Mildred stumbled back so quickly and so awkwardly that she fell, and for a moment I thought she was going to fall in the lake. I grabbed at her, and she clung to me unsteadily. "Did you see her?" I demanded when she had her balance again.

"Oh, dear, let's go back indoors," Mildred gasped when she could catch her breath. When I was able to look back at the tree, Alma was gone.

But my feeling of deja vu persisted so strongly that Alma's disappearance hardly seemed to matter. "I know what happened!" I ejaculated.

"What is it?" Mildred cried. We were still clinging to each other, and I became aware that she had the notion I might throw her into the water. I relaxed my hold.

"Diana's last few minutes alive--I know what happened." I exclaimed. "She was standing on the dock, when she saw Alma sitting there. She waved, and made some motion, I think maybe an invitation to go out in a boat. She went back down the jetty--" I followed my own words as if I visualized what happened, "--to the boathouse, where--she started to take down a boat, and then, and then--" I was standing with my arms up on the boatrack, pantomiming the impression that was flowing into me. "--and then something struck her. But what? Who? There's nothing that says."

Mildred said in a small, frightened voice, "I'm going back to the hotel now. Are you going to be all right?"

"What? Yes ... Yes, I am. The feeling's passed." It was rather like getting over an attack of nausea.

Mildred stood in the doorway and looked at me as I looked bewildered. "But who hit her? She never saw him--or her."

Or her. I was thinking of Alma. Alma had been nearby, I was certain. Had Alma struck Diana? But why? I didn't want to believe that. But what was I to make of that extraordinary vision? It was as if Alma had been sitting right there on the shore, smiling and waving at me. The only thing that convinced me it was not real was that Mildred was standing right beside me and had seen nothing.

CHAPTER 24

"Do you feel up to a seance tonight?" Alma asked me at supper. I tried to look at her in the light of my new knowledge, that she was the last person to see Diana alive. Was she playing a game with me? Was she actually manipulating the seances to cast suspicion in some particular direction? I needed some sort of assurance that I knew what was going on before I joined her in another session.

"I don't think so," I told her. "It doesn't feel right. There's a lot of confusion in the air. Maybe it's Elsa's funeral tomorrow."

She gave me a queer look that I suppose I was to take for knowing. "Of course, my dear. It's all up to you and how ready you feel."

Jeff looked disappointed and worried. "What's wrong?" he asked when he got me alone after supper. "You haven't changed your mind, have you, about helping to find the real killer?"

"No, Jeff," I assured him. "I can't explain, but tonight just isn't the night. Trust me."

"It's just that I thought things were starting to go so well."

"I don't know, but I feel everything's moving toward some sort of climax. But tonight something tells me to wait."

Paul was anxious, too. He came to me in my room.

"What made you decide not to have a seance tonight?" he wanted to know.

"I thought you were the one who was skeptical about seances."

"It's your change of mind I'm interested in. You were so eager to go ahead yesterday. Did something happen to change your mind?"

"Nothing, really. I--I just want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding the message I'm getting."

"Do you think they might not really be messages from Diana?"

"Oh, they're from her, all right, at least some of them."

"You mean, there are other spirits contacting you?"

I turned away and went to sit at the chair at the desk. I had wondered all day how much I should confide in Paul, or anyone. I didn't want him to jump to conclusions based upon second hand psychic messages that maybe even I wasn't interpreting correctly. But maybe he had a right to know what to look for. "No," I said at last. "But I'm not sure Diana knows everything or can tell everything. Certainly not directly."

"Did she speak to you again?" He came and sat down in the easy chair, waiting for me to make a story of it.

"Yes she did," I said at last, "this afternoon. It was a vision quite unlike anything I've experienced before." I told him about seeing the shadowy figure sneaking into the boathouse. "I thought it was a prowler, but Mildred wasn't able to see it. But there wasn't anything in the boathouse when we looked."

"Was that all there was to it?"

"No. We walked out onto the jetty to see if we could see anything that would suggest a prowler. And that's when I had my vision. Paul, I know what Diana experienced in the last minutes of her life."

The color drained away from Paul's face. "My God! What happened?"

"I looked back toward the shore and saw Alma sitting there reading a book. She looked up and waved tome. But Mildred didn't see her. That's when the feeling came over me quite strongly that that was what Diana had seen."

"Do you mean Alma wasn't really there?"

"No. It was just a hallucination. She waved at me, and then she disappeared."

"Right off the beach?"

"Not the beach. She was sitting on the roots of a big tree that hangs over the water off to the right, in the woods."

"And then what happened?"

"Well, then I knew that Diana had come back to the boathouse to take out a boat. I could feel it quite vividly. I even know how she was standing when she was struck from behind. She never saw who hit her."

"Did you mention this to Alma?"

"No. She never told me that she had seen Diana alive that last afternoon, though she has hinted that she saw the body. Paul, she must have been the last person to see Diana alive, except the--. You don't think she might have killed Diana, do you?"

"That's crazy--why should she?"

"That's what I thought. Maybe she is crazy. Anyway, I was so confused and startled by the whole episode that I didn't know how to handle it. I couldn't go through with th seance tonight. What if she's manipulating those seances in some way I haven't figured out? I have to have some sort of answers before I have another seance with her."

"What do you plan to do then?"

"I don't know. That's what I need time to think out. Maybe Alma is innocent, but why didn't she tell me about seeing Diana, then? It's all so confusing."

"And you say Mildred didn't see anything?"

"No. I think I gave her a good scare."

"She's Alma's friend, isn't she?"

"Yes, but I think she's worried about Alma, too. Not that she might be dangerous, but that she might be unbalanced."

"Is that it? You think Alma's crazy?"

"I just don't know. It frightens me to think about it. But Diana seems to be getting through to me even without the seances. I think she might contact me soon. I suppose information from her won't be proof, but it might point to independent evidence. At least I'll know."

Paul looked worried. "You don't think Alma's dangerous, do you?"

"To me? I can't see why, even if she is guilty, which I'm not saying she is. She came here for some reason, and if she had intended any more harm, she would have done it long ago."

"But you've managed to get me worried about you."

"Don't be," I told him. "Those swollen ankles of hers aren't fakes. She can't move very fast or get very far, I guess we'll just have to wait and see what she wants."

Paul got up to leave, and when he opened the door, Mildred was standing there just ready to knock.

"Oh, there you are," she said. "I was looking for the both of you. We've been making plans for tomorrow."

"What about tomorrow?"

"You weren't thinking of going to poor Elsa's funeral, were you?"

Paul expressed surprise that any one would ever think he might even consider it.

"I don't think I will, either," I told her. "Of course, it's clear now that her hostility was based on a tragic misunderstanding, but that didn't make it any less real. I'd feel out of place at her funeral."

"That's what we thought you'd feel," Mildred said. "So we thought we'd go and represent the hotel for you. After all, we've all known Elsa for weeks, and Alma and Maybelle from last year, so you might say we were the closest friends she had.

"The poor thing, I don't suppose she had many friends her own age."

"That's good of you, for the family's sake," I said. "You're neutral, anyway, as far as the circumstance leading to her death."

"Jeff's going too," she went on. "He figures that since he wasn't here last year, Elsa's family won't blame him for what happened. He thinks if he didn't go, people would think he believed his parents really are guilty."

"Yes, it's ticklish business," I confessed. "If I'm ever to become part of this community, I've got to get off to the right start with my new neighbors."

When Mildred went off to share her news, Paul turned back to me and said in a low voice, "They can't fool me. They're not going out of concern for the family. They're going out of sheer nosiness."

"Oh, come on," I protested. "You don't give them enough credit." But his cheerful sarcasm cheered me up a little.

CHAPTER 25

I was jarred awake by pounding on my door. "Mrs. Townsend! Mrs. Townsend!" I fumbled for the night lamp and then groped at my robe as I stumbled to the door. It was Helen. "There's a fire in the basement!" Sure enough, there was a whiff of smoke in the hall.

"Did you call the fire department?"

"I called Jeff. He's down there now with a fire extinguisher."

"Did you wake everybody up? Is everybody accounted for?"

As if to answer my question, Maybelle stuck her head out of the door opposite mine, and Paul came padding down the hall in his robe and slippers.

"It seems we're on fire. We ought to go outside."

"Oh! It's cold out there!" Maybelle exclaimed, as if there were no fate worse than taking a chill.

I was just about to go and pound on Alma's door when the door to the lobby opened and Alma and Mildred came into the guest wing. "Whew! It's worse in here," Alma exclaimed. "You'd better come into the lounge."

The best I could do was get them herded into the corridor off the back door where we could leave quickly if things got out of control. But in truth there was little smoke or smell in that area.

"What's burning? What's going on?" Paul was mumbling.

"Did anyone call the fire department?" I repeated.

"I think Jeff did," Helen said. "At least he sort of took charge."

"It's in the furnace room," Mildred was telling Paul. "That's right under our bedrooms. It's a wonder we weren't all asphyxiated in our sleep."

"I'll call them myself," I announced and headed for the phone at the main desk. But just then Jeff came up out of the basement stairs.

"No need to panic, everybody," he announced. "The fire's out."

"Are you sure? Is the fire department on its way?"

"It's all right now," he insisted. "No use to bother them."

"But if there's the slightest danger it might break out again--"

"It won't. I made doubly sure. It wasn't inside the wall or anyplace where it could sneak in and hide."

"But what was it?"

"The wiring, I think," he said. "It looked as if some rats have been chewing the insulation. I guess they bared some wires that short circuited and started burning the paint on the wall."

"Are you sure it's all right now?"

"Positive," he said with a touch of exasperation. "Look, Mrs. Townsend. You don't want to bring the fire department right now if you don't have to. They won't like being brought here in the middle of the night. They'll want to inspect, and you don't want an inspection when the inspector is in a bad mood."

"But if there are dangerous violations--"

"There aren't, take my word for it. But in a building this old, there are always things you can find if you want to look for them."

Why did Jeff's good advice always make me feel tainted?

"Well, you better let me inspect it anyway. Who first noticed it?"

"I did," Helen said. "It was almost a miracle. I was dreaming about fire and woke up in a cold sweat. I couldn't even smell it then in the room, but I just knew something was wrong. I couldn't rest until I found out, so I went to the back stairs, and there I could smell it. So I buzzed Jeff from the desk, and he ran down and put it out."

So I had Jeff show me, and Paul insisted on going along. Jeff pointed out where the wall was scorched and the blackened wire frayed.

"I'm afraid we'll have to do without heat for tonight," he said. "It was the wiring to the furnace."

"We won't have electric heating, do we?" I asked. He gave me an odd look.

"Of course not, but what do you think runs the thermostat and the blowers?"

"It doesn't look like there was much fire," I said. "I wonder how Helen ever detected it."

"I guess somebody was watching over us," Jeff said. "There's painting materials stashed right over there. Just a few minutes of burning undetected and whoosh! there goes the whole building."

It was obvious enough that we weren't in any more danger from fire tonight. We went back up to reassure the ladies.

"Are you sorry by now that you didn't leave?" I asked them. They looked both relieved and worried.

"Maybe we shouldn't stretch our luck much more," Helen said, dubiously.

Alma broke in. "Nonsense. We're perfectly safe. The spirits are looking after us."

CHAPTER 26

It was too cold to get up in the morning. I huddled under the blankets and refused to think about exposing more than my nose to the cold air until I began to be aware that my nose wasn't so cold any more. The sun was standing over the hills beyond the lake and flooding my room with a double portion of cheerful morning as if to make up for yesterday's damp gloom. By now most of the yellows, reds, and oranges had been washed out of the distant hills, and they had taken on a more wintry brown, punctuated with black tree trunks and the greenish black of the winter pines and firs.

In the kitchen, the ladies were already clearing up their own breakfast dishes. Alma and Maybelle were washing and drying the dishes while Helen poured me a cup of coffee. "Where's Jeff; is he up yet?" I asked.

"Up and gone," Helen told me. "He wanted to visit his mother and talk with his lawyer before Elsa's funeral. He told us to tell you he fixed the wiring to the furnace--at least until he gets a chance to do a proper job."

"And Paul?"

"Moping around, I guess. I do believe he's bored with us old ladies for company." She winked at me.

The ladies bustled around and got ready to go into town as if nothing had happened last night that was the least out of the ordinary. Perhaps I was making too much of it in my own mind. Yet it did seem as if the physical universe itself were rising up against me, or the hotel, or something. The peculiar accident to Paul's car. The fire last night. What new thing was going to happen?

At ten-thirty, the ladies were ready to leave. Once more they were borrowing the station wagon.

"Give Elsa's family my sympathy," I told them, "if you think it's politic to say that. I don't suppose there's any right thing to do or say to the family."

"Now, Cynthia," Alma said, "you don't have to feel responsible." She patted my hand, which was resting on the car's window sill. Instinctively I pulled my hand back.

"I know I don't, and intellectually I don't feel responsible. But that doesn't stop me from feeling guilty about what I might have done or might not have done to save her."

"Well, you watch yourself while we're gone." Alma said, not taking offense at my pulling away my hand. "There have been vibrations here in the hotel. I don't know if they've all dissipated."

Helen shifted into drive, and the car began moving slowly down the drive. I felt confused and unhappy about my suspicions of Alma. Yet they were well-founded. She had been the last to see Diana alive, and she hadn't told me that significant bit of information. I turned back toward the hotel and found Paul standing in the doorway.

"So they're off?" he asked.

"Yes. I wonder if I should have gone, after all."

"Of course not. Who would have stayed and kept me company?" He reached out his hand, and

I took it. He drew me to him. "We're all alone now--we can do what we want." I let him kiss me, but my heart wasn't in it, and he could sense that. "A penny for your thoughts, he said. "A dollar if you can keep them on me for two minutes."

"I'm sorry, Paul," I said. "I was thinking about Alma. The whole thing has me stumped."

"It really does have you preoccupied," he observed.

"I can't help it. I feel I'm the only one who can solve this mystery."

"I'm not so sure there is a mystery," he said. "What's wrong with the solution we've already got?"

"But where does Alma fit in, then? I just don't believe she ever would have come back here if she had seen the murder and believed the Milners were guilty."

"Oh, come on," Paul protested. "Alma's just a crazy old broad who just happened to stumble on to something and is trying to milk it for all it's worth. Who can say what weird, distorted notion she has of things? Besides, I think she just enjoys making things more confused so she can keep on being the center of attention."

"That would make more sense if she knows less than she has let on. But suppose she knows more."

"You mean, suppose she's the murderer?"

"I can't really bring myself to believe that, though I confess it seems more plausible today than it did the day before yesterday."

"Are you sure that Diana can't tell you any more than she already has? Everything always seems to come back to what she has been able to get through to you."

"I know. I wish I knew how to control the communication. She contacts me; I don't contact her."

"Maybe you could tease it along. Maybe if we walked through what you know she did, maybe it would trigger something."

We got our coats and walked down to the dock.

"Where do you think you should start?" Paul asked.

"I'm not sure," I told him. "I know I felt something when we were standing out on the end looking back toward the shore." So we walked out to the end.

"Do you feel anything?"

"Not now, but I can remember what I felt yesterday. I looked back to the shore and thought I saw Alma sitting there--" I pointed to the big sycamore hanging out over the water off to the right where the woods met the shore. "She was sitting there reading, and she looked up at me and waved, so Diana must have waved at her."

I stood there and stared at the place where I had seen Alma, mentally willing Diana to show me what she was feeling. It wasn't the same sort of day--it was colder, and the leaves were gone, but the un was shining as it must have been on the day Diana died. I tried to pretend everything was the same.

"Anything yet?"

"Not really. She walked back to the boathouse, so I think she was going to get out a boat."

"And what about Alma? Did she get up or anything?"

"I don't know. I think either Diana invited her to go boating or she indicated to her that she was going boating, because this feels right." I made rowing motions with my hands. "And then she went to the boathouse.

"I have an impression of green wiggly lines on the walls, so I think the water doors must have been open." It was an overhead door that worked on a counterweight. Paul pulled the chain, and the boathouse flooded with the same green reflections. They helped set the mood. Certain motions seemed right--or at least more right than others. It was like the children's game--some movements seemed warm and the others cold.

"She reached up--" I said, reaching up the way it felt right "--to attach a boat to the crane. It was right here, but no, it wasn't this boat. She didn't want a canoe, she wanted the other boat that was here then." I looked around to see what other boat it could have been, but the rowboats all looked pretty much the same.

"Help me get the right boat," I said. Paul got the other end, and we lifted down the canoe and stowed it on an empty rack out of the way.

The boats were stacked on racks along the sides of the boathouse, and there was a crane which allowed them to be handled by one person. You swung the boom over the rack, attached the boat with a hook at each end, raised and lowered it with a block and tackle, and swung it out over the water. That was what Diana was trying to do.

Paul attached another boat to the crane and hauled it up into place.

"That's better," I said. "There weren't any boats in the water, I guess because it was after Labor Day and they had been put away. So she came in--" I acted it out as I said it, "and attached the crane to this end. She reached up--yes--just like this, and then she went down to the other end, and took the hook, and then she pulled the rope to lift the boat free of the rack. And then she--"

"But she didn't turn around." "No, she was facing toward the water door, watching the play of light on the wall, but--" I stopped suddenly, and turned around and looked at Paul. "How do you know she didn't turn around?"

"Because she didn't see the person who hit her."

"How do you know she didn't?"

He just stood there staring at me, with an expression that looked like disappointment and resignation. And then I knew why Diana had never revealed or ever hinted to me who her murderer was. In life or death she couldn't know. She had her back turned and never saw her husband when he raised the tire bar and brought it crashing down on the back of her head. Even in death she had never guessed it was Paul.

"What are you going do about it?" I asked. I was surprised at how calm I felt. I guess at the moment I didn't have time to feel anything but my own stupidity. All this time I had been expecting Diana to warn me.

Suddenly Paul stepped forward and grabbed me by the arms, his powerful hands pinning my arms to my side. It might have been an embrace, but there was no love in his eyes.

"I'm sorry you found out," he said. "I was really beginning to like you. You were so much like Diana was at first--before things started to go bad. I was hoping she wouldn't tell you, but she's getting through to you, isn't she? She got through."

"No, she didn't," I said. "I never suspected. Neither did she."

"Well, it's too late now," he said. "I was hoping she didn't, but I couldn't take the chance." I tried to wrench free, but as I stepped back I tripped, and he came down on top of me. Then I was fighting, and I think screaming, because I heard him saying, "It's no use to scream, you've sent them all away."

We were on the edge of the quay, and he was pushing my shoulders over the edge and my head down, forcing me backwards into the water. The edge of the quay was scraping the small of my back. He shoved my face, and my nose was full of water, and I bit his hand, which made him lose his grip, so I came back up, gasping and choking. Then he was shoving my face a second time, and I went under again, but this time with a bit more air. I was thrashing around, and my fingers curled around into something, and I pulled. It was that shock of boyish blond hair, and I pulled myself up by it.

This time his fist came at me for a sock on the jaw, but I managed to turn my head enough to turn it into a glancing blow, or it would have finished me. But I was back under water for a third time. And now there was so much struggling and gasping and shouting that I don't know if I heard a shot. But suddenly Paul pitched forward over me and tumbled backwards into the water. I came up just in time to scramble out of the way, because he had grabbed wildly at something to stop his fall and had caught the rope, not saving himself, but releasing the catch on the block and tackle. The boat swung forward as it tumbled, and landed half in and half out of the water. Then I hauled myself up to avoid the spreading dark cloud in the water and lay panting on the quay. When I looked up, I saw the boat canted on the edge o the quay and two feet sticking out from under it, the legs disappearing down into the murky water.

I rolled over and got shakily to my hands and knees. When I could stop retching, I looked up toward the door and saw Alma leaning against the door jam, wheezing, her eyes glazed and her face dead white, a deer rifle clutched tight in her shaking hands.

CHAPTER 27

Back in the hotel, Alma was stretched out on her bed with Helen, Mildred, and Maybelle fluttering about, anxious that their part not be left out of the bizarre story that was finally going to be told. I was surprised that enough time had elapsed for the others to be back from Elsa's funeral, but the police had come and gone, I had told my confused part of the story, and I had time to change out of my sopping clothes. Jeff's mysterious appearance in the middle of everything had not entirely surprised me. It was a morning for surprises.

"Is he dead?" Alma cried out, half raising herself on her elbow when she saw Jeff and me coming into her room.

"I'm afraid he is," Jeff told her. She sank back on the bed and fanned herself vigorously with her handkerchief.

"Oh--that AW-ful man!" she gasped out with very obvious relief. "I'll never get over him. I've been scared to death ever since he came back here!"

"You mean you suspected him all the time?" I exclaimed. Alma gave me a pained and put-out look.

"You didn't really think I'm as dotty as I've been acting all this time, do you?"

"But how did you guess?"

"My dear, I saw him do it!"

"But why didn't you do something? Why didn't you tell the police?"

"Tell them what?" she retorted. "Who would have believed a silly old woman given to prattling on about what the spirits told her? I had to get some sort of proof."

"And almost get me killed!"

She waved that notion away with a flutter of her handkerchief. "Oh, we were watching over you. He couldn't have gotten away with anything. But plop yourself down, dear. You must be as pooped as I am."

I was and I did, in the deep chair by the window. The other ladies were perched on the end of the bed. Jeff pulled up the straight chair from the desk.

"Now suppose you tell us everything," Jeff demanded.

"I shall, I shall," Alma said, "but I'm vastly in need of a cup of strong tea. Why don't you trot off and make us some, dearie?" she said to Mildred. "I promise I won't say a single word you haven't already heard until you get back. You go and help her, Maybelle." She might have been instructing two children. So they went off to make tea, and were in and out with the tea caddy and the cups and things, trying to miss as little as possible while the water was boiling.

"You say you saw him murder Diana?" I prompted. "I had a vision yesterday that you were the last person to see Diana alive--except him."

"Actually, it was me you saw," Alma said, "But all in good time. Let me start at the beginning. Diana was here in September--we thought she was you, of course--and it was very warm--still summer, really. I had a favorite place to go on warm afternoons and relax and read. It's that big sycamore where you saw me. Its roots go out over the water, and it makes a very serviceable lounge chair if you take along a couple of pillows. I used to go there with a good book. It's very secluded, because nobody can see you from the path, though you can see the end of the jetty where it sticks out beyond the boathouse. Well, anyway, I'd gone to read and must have dozed off. When I woke up, I saw Diana sitting on the end of the jetty and sort of mooning over the water. She was a rather moody, withdrawing sort of girl, but we had struck up a speaking acquaintance. When she got up and turned around, she saw me and waved, and I waved back. Then she made rowing motions and pantomimed an invitation to go out on the lake in a rowboat. I was a bit stiff from sitting, so I motioned yes, and she disappeared up the jetty behind the boathouse.

"Well, you can guess that it takes a stout lady a little while to scramble up out of the roots of a sycamore tree. When I got up to the path, I saw a man at the edge of the woods, watching the boathouse from behind a tree. He was wearing white cotton work gloves and was carrying what looked like a tire iron. He crept forward, toward the boathouse, and I followed, keeping out of his sight. I was rather alarmed, because he looked like a sneak thief, or I don't know what.

"It was horrible. I got to the door of the boathouse just in time to see him raise the tire iron over his head and bring it down hard. I couldn't see what he was hitting at, but I knew Diana had to be in there getting out a boat. I dashed back to where he had stood behind the tree. Then he came out and looked around--I suppose to see if anybody was coming. I could never mistake who that man was. He must have seen someone or something up toward the hotel, because he dashed in my direction, still looking up toward the hotel.

"I was terrified that he was coming after me. I jumped down over the bank and into some bushes beside the edge of the water, and I must have fainted or knocked myself out, because I must have lain there a long time. I thought sure he would come crashing down on top of me, but I guess he didn't see me. I gathered myself up and limped back to the path. Almost in front of me was the tire iron, all bloody on one end. I went to the boathouse and looked in, expecting to see Diana lying there, but there was only a big smear of blood in the dockside. I looked into the water, but it was clear, so I didn't think he had shoved the body into the water.

"I rushed up to the hotel and yelled for help, but nobody was there--nobody. The other ladies that were there then-- Maybelle was the only one back this year--had driven into town. I thought about calling the police, but I could hardly stand upright for feeling so faint, so I went into my room for a glass of water. I thought I was having a heart attack.

"So did Mrs. Milner, evidently, when she came in, because I have vague memories of her shaking me and shouting and then of an ambulance which came and took me to the hospital. Then I couldn't tell anything that might because I was heavily sedated and they would have thought I was raving anyway. But the next morning the doctor decided it was my diabetes and not a hear attack, and he decided that I might just as well take up space in the hotel as in the hospital, so he sent me back. When I got back, I asked about Diana, but the Milners said she had gone home--her mother was sick or something. I went down to the boathouse, as soon as I could and looked for the blood, but it was all gone, and of course the tire bar wasn't lying in the path any more, either. I had almost convinced myself that the whole thing was a hallucination, but the image of that man was too vivid. I thought maybe the Milners had hired him to kill Cynthia, since I knew about the will--it had been in the paper when the old man died."

At this point, Mildred came in with the hot water, and Alma stopped while they passed around the cups and the sugar and lemon. I was struck by the absurdity of sitting around as if it were any ordinary tea party and listening to this grotesque tale. "But why did you come back here?" I asked. "After that kind of experience, I'd have thought you would have wanted to keep as far away as you could from this place."

"It was a compulsion, I guess." Alma went on. "I had to see if I could find out what really happened. If Cynthia were all right, she surely would come back and take over the hotel. But Mrs. Milner just brushed aside any questions about Cynthia. It was as if she had never existed. I think now that she and Mr. Milner were hoping that when the time came I wouldn't be around to remember and tell anybody that Cynthia Townsend had ever been here. But I was beginning to think I had gone gaga. You remember my asking about Cynthia, don't you, Maybelle?"

"Oh yes," Maybelle said. "You asked if I remembered Cynthia. Of course I did, but I really don't think I was aware that she was supposed to own the hotel."

"As far as I know, none of the other ladies were aware of that. Diana didn't act like someone who was going to take over the hotel. She was just a quiet guest."

"And you recognized Paul when he showed up?"

"Yes, and I don't mind telling you how frightened I was. Because I thought the Milners had hired him to kill Cynthia. but it soon became clear that they didn't know him and weren't the least suspicious of him. What was he doing here, the classic murderer returning to the scene of the crime? So of course I snuck a peek at his writing and saw at once that he was no writer, no matter what he called himself. So I was sure he wasn't just an innocent bystander I had worked into my hallucination.

"Then you showed up, and I really did think I was going crazy. But Maybelle knew you. Now, Maybelle may be a little slow--" She smiled affectionately at Maybelle and patted her hand. "--but if Maybelle recognized her, I knew she really must have been there. And I really thought at first that you might be a ghost."

"Is that why you put on that crazy act?" I asked her.

"I was winging it. I wanted Paul to think I was getting spiritual vibrations, too, because it was clear that your were getting them, and it was clear that he was interested. But I wasn't convinced that either you or your mysterious double was a ghost. Gradually I put two and two together and came up with twins, and I guessed that Diana had been impersonating you. From poor Elsa's reaction, it seemed likely that she much have discovered Diana still alive in the boathouse, and from what happened at the seance, Elsa was the last person Diana saw alive. I think she never saw her attacker and never knew who it was. That's why you cried out at the seance at Elsa and not to Paul."

"Do you think she really came back?"

"My guess is, no," Alma said after thinking about it a little. "Or else why wouldn't she know who killed her? Why with all those episodes of deja vu didn't you get any strong vibrations about Paul, good or bad? Because she didn't have any strong feelings about him when she died."

"But she did contact me again," I cried. "She must have had something more to tell me."

Alma looked coy again. "I'm getting to that, dearie. But first about Paul. It was obvious he wanted something to happen. He had left Diana where she fell, and he left the tire bar where nobody could miss it. But no body was ever discovered. Somebody must have covered up a crime that he wanted people to know about. That's why he came back to the hotel. He tried to frighten Elsa and make her talk. Some little things had happened before you came that worked on her nerves, but the minute she reacted to you, really bad things began to happen to her--the insides of the deer, getting locked in the cellar, the dead cat. And he was sticking so close to you that I was sure he wanted to be the first to know what messages you were getting."

"But the hunting accident," I exclaimed. "Did he stage that?"

"No," Jeff broke in ruefully, "that really was Preston. I think he's the most dangerous man in the woods."

"Anyway," Alma continued, "After the seance and poor Elsa's suicide and Mr. Milner's confession, it looked like the case was solved--everything but what really happened. It looked like a perfect crime, because nobody suspected Paul, and things sure looked black for Mr. and Mrs. Milner. So what could I do? If I accused Paul now, at this late date, nobody was going to believe a crazy old woman. Paul would probably go away figuring there was not threat to him. After all, Diana had had her chance at the seance, and she had accused Elsa, not Paul. So if he was going to be caught, I had to get to him through you."

"But the next day--that was a genuine episode. You couldn't fake that!" I protested.

"Hand me my purse over there," Alma said to Mildred. Mildred brought it from the dresser and Alma rummaged around in it. "I had to do something," she went on, "so when the body was discovered, Mildred and I went into town. We said we were going for groceries, but we went to the hospital to see Mrs. Milner. We asked her if there was anyplace in the hotel that Diana had visited but you hadn't seen. Luckily for what I wanted, you had never visited Walter's room. But Diana had. I suppose she was trying to get close to you through Walter."

"But the voice, the sobbing. She called me."

Alma had found what she wanted and pulled it out. It was a microphone with an antenna.

"I also got this," she said. "It broadcasts through radio. We hid a radio in your room. When I met Jeff in town, in his mother's hospital room, I told him I could get the truth through you if you thought you were having visitations again, though I didn't think I dared tell him exactly why. But I can be very persuasive when I'm not acting crazy. We rigged up radios and the public address system and talked you out of bed and upstairs. I was trusting that your curiosity and the deja vu would do the rest."

"What if it hadn't?"

"I'd have had to think up something else. As a matter of fact, I did."

"Then Diana wasn't trying to tell me anything?"

"Only that she loved you. We sort of used her, you might say."

"But wasn't it dangerous, making Paul think I was going to come up with other spiritual messages that might incriminate him?"

"Oh, we were watching him all the time, weren't we, girls?" Alma said, and Helen impishly pulled at a chain around her neck and pulled out a whistle, which she blew. "Didn't you notice how peskily we've hung around the last few days? We know Paul didn't have a gun--he hadn't come up here expecting danger--so we figured we could handle anything else."

"And Paul never suspected."

"He never guessed I had seen him, at least until you told him about my being the last person Diana saw alive. And I was careful not to let him suspect, though you gave me quite a scare down in the cellar when you mentioned the boathouse. But by that time I had him convinced that I was warning him against you."

"Which, come to think of it, turned out to be a perfect prediction," Jeff pointed out.

"So you conned him into thinking Diana was just about to break through to me again," I said. "And you conned me, too."

"I knew you were close," Alma said with a wink, "And I wanted you to keep being sincere with him. That's why I couldn't let you know. Of course, the other seance was a fake."

"And the ruckus in the trophy room.?"

She grinned. "Wasn't I clever there? He could suspect a fake seance, but he didn't think any of us suspected him, so what would he make of the Othello game spilled all over the floor? After all, Othello killed his wife, didn't he?"

"And that passage about the Levite and his dead concubine? Don't tell me you conned Rev. Thornberry into being your accomplice?"

"He played right into my hands," Alma said smugly. "Of course there was no guarantee that Paul would make a connection, but we had to litter the landscape with psychic messages, you might say, and force him to do something."

"But the incident down at the boathouse?"

"Helen made a lot of sneaking runs back and forth until Mildred finally got you to see her."

"But when I got to the boathouse, she wasn't there!"

"You let me look in the boats on the far side," Mildred put in. "I was so terrified you'd just barge in and look there."

We all laughed at that. "And you were really there at the tree?"

"Yes. Mildred was supposed to make you think she wasn't seeing me, and I was hoping for another deja vu to confuse you. Of course I guessed that you would tell Paul, but I was hoping it would make him panic."

"But why did you start a fire in the cellar?"

"We didn't. Paul did. He was trying to burn us out of the hotel."

"And you let him? We might have been killed."

"Of course not. I told you we were watching him all the time. He had it rigged to go off when the furnace came on. We simply dismantled it as soon as he left."

"But the fire?"

"What fire? We burned some rags in a waste basket for smoke, and then Jeff scorched the wall with a blowtorch. We wanted Paul to think his scheme had just gone astray.

"And this morning, you just pretended to go off to the funeral?"

"A desperate strategy, but it worked," Alma said, "But now I'm exhausted. Do you mind running off and letting me take a little nap?"

"So you all knew about this," I said to Jeff as we came back to the lounge.

"Not much, really," Jeff said. "I wasn't coming back here, but Alma pleaded with the that you were in danger and told me that if I came back and helped her, she thought she could smoke out the real murderer. She didn't tell me exactly what she had in mind. I just thought at first she meant she would get you to reveal it through spiritualism. I thought she was crazy, but she assured me that if you did come up with anything, she would confirm it in a more concrete way. It wasn't much of a hope, but it was the only one I had. As she said, she's very persuasive when she drops that crazy old woman act."

"Did you suspect Paul?"

"I was beginning to put two and two together."

"I'm ashamed to confess I never guessed. He had me completely fooled. I was sure Diana would have warned me if her murderer were near."

"Well, it was hard, trusting a crazy old woman, but it was the one straw within reach, so I grasped at it."

"Let that be a lesson to you," I told him. "Never underestimate the wiles of a woman, even a little old woman."

He grinned. "Or a pretty young one."

CHAPTER 28

"Oh, Mrs. Townsend, I'm so sorry about everything," Mrs. Milner was protesting. "What you must have thought of us!"

"We just won't think about what's happened," I assured her. "We'll just rejoice that everything is straightened out now and the mystery of the two Cynthias is solved." She started puddling up. "But I should have known who you were. I should have guessed."

"I guess all of us could say that, there was so much confusion all around. Maybe I ought to leave and come back again, fresh. Hello, I'm Cynthia Townsend, Walter's wife. You must be Mrs. Milner. Walter told me so much about you."

We fell into each other's arms and kissed each other and cried; and Mr. Milner came up, and I hugged him, and we cried some more; and it began to be all right. Mr. Milner was out of jail, though there was still the charge of concealing Diana's body hanging over his head. But considering the whole story, the lawyer was sure that things could be worked out so that there would be only a nominal sentence if any.

It was brunch time in the kitchen, a late breakfast for the homecoming Milners and an early lunch for Helen and Maybelle, who were catching the twelve-thirty bus in town. Now I understood that their reluctance to leave was not because they had no place to go or because they were just curious to find out how the mystery turned out, but an anxiety to help protect me and to see that Paul was brought to justice.

Not that I could get rid of Alma just yet. There would have to be an inquest on the death of Paul Lawrence, but from the evidence it was likely to be little more than a formality. Mildred was staying to keep her company.

"You'll let us know how everything turns out, won't you?" Helen asked "We're beginning to feel like family by now."

I kissed her on the cheek. "Of course we will. Send me a postcard with your address. You are family. I expect you to come back next summer. I have a standing rule that my dearest and oldest friends will always be welcome at the hotel as my personal guests."

"I don't know if we like being referred to as your oldest friends, though," Alma said with a little of her old impishness. Blasting somebody with a deer rifle is bound to do something for your disposition, even if it's in a good cause, but she was beginning to bounce back.

"You'd better be careful of this lady," Jeff said, reaching out and giving Alma a squeeze around the shoulder. "She's a certified witch and just might put a hex on you."

I had never seen Jeff so animated. Of course, we had been meeting only in the worst possible confrontations, and he had been under a considerable strain. Now he jumped around to set the table, to make sure everyone was served, and just to be a jovial host.

"I have all kinds of news," he said. "First off, the folks are going to Florida for the winter. They didn't want to, but I insisted. They've got to get away from here and think only happy thoughts."

"Oh, good! Can you afford it?" I said, thinking I could offer to get a loan on the property if money was a problem.

"The hotel can," he told me. "With the property tied up, we couldn't get a mortgage, so we had to save quite a nestegg in case the roof or the furnace went bad. I figure that's part of our profits, out of the terms of the will."

"Are you sure that's how the will reads?"

"Put it this way," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "You'll have a hard time getting it back once it's spent."