"Will it do any good?" Peter asked. "We're snowed in again. We'll never be able to drive anywhere, even if Mrs. Hawthorne does know something."
"Then we'll walk," Don said.
"Yes," Ricky said. "If that's what it takes, we'll walk." And lay back against the pillows. "You know, we're the Chowder Society now. The three of us. After Sears was found dead I thought-I said I was the only one left. I felt terribly bereft. Sears was my best friend; he was like my brother. And I'll miss him as long as I live. But I know that when Gregory Bate cornered Sears, Sears put up a hell of a good scrap. He did his best to save Fenny once a long time ago, and I know he did his best against them when his time came. No, there's no need to feel bad about Sears-he probably did better than any of us could have done alone."
Ricky put his empty soup bowl down on the bedside table. "But now there's a new Chowder Society, and here we all are. And there's no whiskey and no cigars, and we're not dressed right-and good heavens, look at me! I'm not even wearing a bow tie." He plucked at the open collar of his pajama shirt and smiled at them. "And I'll tell you one other thing. No more awful stories and no nightmares either. Thank God."
"I'm not so sure about the nightmares," Peter said.
After Peter Barnes went off to his own room to lie down for an hour, Ricky sat up in bed and looked candidly at Don Wanderley through his glasses. "Don, when you first came here you saw that I didn't like you very much. I didn't like you being here, and until I saw that you were like your uncle in certain ways, I didn't much take to you personally. But I don't have to tell you that's all changed, do I? Good Lord, I'm chattering away like a magpie! What was in that shot the doctor gave me, anyhow?"
"A huge dose of vitamins."
"Well, I feel much better. All revved up. I still have that terrific cold, of course, but I've had that so long that it feels like a friend. But listen here, Don. After what we've been through, I couldn't feel closer to you. If Sears felt like my brother, you feel like my son. Closer than my son, in fact. My boy Robert can't talk to me-I can't talk to him. That's been true since he was about fourteen. So I think I'm going to adopt you spiritually, if you don't object."
"It makes me too proud of myself to object," Don said, and took Ricky's hand.
"You sure there were just vitamins in that shot?"
"Well."
"If this is how dope makes you feel, I can understand how John became an addict." He lay back and closed his eyes. "When all this is over, assuming we're still alive, let's stay in touch. I'll take Stella on a trip to Europe. I'll send you a barrage of postcards."
"Of course," Don said, and started to say something, but Ricky was already asleep.
Shortly after ten o'clock, Peter and Don, who had eaten downstairs, brought a grilled steak, a salad and a bottle of burgundy up to Ricky's room. Another plate on the tray held a second steak for Stella. Don knocked on the door, heard Ricky say "Come in," and entered, carrying the heavy tray.
Stella Hawthorne, her hair in a scarf, looked up at Don from beside her husband on the guest-room bed. "I woke up an hour or so ago," she said, "and I got lonely, so I came down here to Ricky. Is that food? Oh, you're lovely, both of you." She smiled at Peter, who was standing shyly in the door.
"While the two of you were eating us out of house and home I had a little talk with Stella," Ricky said. He took the tray and put it on Stella's lap, and then removed one of the plates. "What luxury this is! Stella, we should have had maids years ago."
"I think I mentioned that once," Stella said. Though still obviously shaken and exhausted by shock, Stella had improved enormously during the evening; she did not look like a woman in her forties now, and perhaps she never would again, but her eyes were clear.
Ricky poured wine for himself and Stella and cut off a piece of steak. "There's no doubt that the man who picked up Stella was the same one who followed you, Peter. He even told Stella that he was a Jehovah's Witness."
"But he was dead," Stella said, and for a moment the shock swept wholly back into her face. She snatched at Ricky's hand and held it. "He was."
"I know," Ricky said, and turned to the other two again. "But after she came back with help, the body was gone."
"Will you please tell me what is going on?" Stella said, now almost in tears.
"I will," said Ricky, "but not now. We're not finished yet. I'll explain everything to you this summer. When we get out of Milburn."
"Out of Milburn?"
"I'm going to take you to France. We'll go to Antibes and St. Tropez and Aries and anywhere else that looks good. We'll be a pair of funny-looking old tourists together. But first you have to help us. Is that all right with you?"
Stella's practicality saw her through. "It is if you're really promising, and not just bribing me."
"Did you see anything else around the car when you came back with Leon Churchill?" Don asked.
"No one else was there," Stella replied, calmer again.
"I don't mean another person. Any animals?"
"I don't remember. I felt so-sort of unreal. No, nothing."
"You're sure? Try to remember how it looked. The car, the open door, the snowbank you hit-"
"Oh," she said, and Ricky paused with the fork halfway to his mouth. "You're right. I saw a dog. Why is that important? It jumped on top of the snowbank from someone's yard, and then jumped down onto the street. I noticed it because it was so beautiful. White."
"That's it," Don said.
Peter Barnes looked back and forth from Don to Ricky, his mouth open.
"Wouldn't you like some wine, Peter? And you, Don?" Ricky asked.
Don shook his head, but Peter said, "Sure," and Ricky passed him his glass.
"Can you remember anything the man said?"
"It was all so horrible… I thought he was crazy. And then I thought he knew me because he called me by name, and he said I shouldn't go to Montgomery Street because you weren't there anymore-where were you?"
"I'll tell you all about it over a Pernod. This spring."
"Anything else you remember?" Don asked. "Did he say where he was taking you?"
"To a friend," Stella said, and shuddered. "He said I'd see a mystery. And he talked about Lewis."
"Nothing more about where his friend was?"
"No. Wait. No." She looked down at her plate, and pushed the tray down toward the foot of the bed. "Poor Lewis. That's enough questions. Please."
"You'd better leave us," Ricky said.
Peter and Don were at the door when Stella said, "I remember. He said he was taking me to the Hollow. I'm sure he said that."
"That's enough for now," Ricky said. "See you in the morning, gentlemen."
And in the morning, Peter and Don were startled to find Ricky Hawthorne already in the kitchen when they came down. He was scrambling eggs, pausing now and then to blow his nose into Kleenex from a convenient box. "Good morning. Do you want to help me think about the Hollow?"
"You ought to be in bed," Don said.
"Like the dickens I ought to be in bed! Can't you smell how close we're getting?"
"I can only smell eggs," Don said. "Peter, get some plates out of the cupboard."
"How many houses are there in the Hollow? Fifty? Sixty? No more than that. And she's in one of them."
"In there waiting for us," Don said, and Peter, putting plates on the Hawthorne's kitchen table, paused and set the final plate down more slowly. "And we must have had two feet of snow last night. It's still snowing. You wouldn't call it a blizzard anymore, but we could easily have another blizzard by this afternoon. There's a snow emergency over most of the state. Do you want to hike over to the Hollow and knock on fifty or sixty doors?"
"No, I want us to think," Ricky said, and carried the pan of eggs to the table and spooned a portion onto each plate. "Let's get some bread in the toaster."