Alice thought: He doesn't really believe it. He's too smug. Neither did Killeen believe it. He caught Alice's eye and smiled at her.
"Now," said Innes with false patience, "I can't obligate Alice to continue a rather large allowance regardless of what proportion it turns out to be of her own income. So you see, it's merely fair."
He folded the paper and waited for the reaction.
Isabel's eyes sUd sidewise in the evasive way she had. "Is that all, then, Innes?" she said, plaintively, as if it hadn't amounted to much. "I do have some things to attend to."
BUked of a sensation, Innes said sulkily, "That's all."
Gertrude rose and said the proper thing, gracefully. "We do thank you, Innes. Of course. You are very good. We shall have no financial worries any more." Her affected voice was sweet "I think you are very good to work this all out while you are so ill." Her voice faded. She moved away.
Maud grunted, heaving herself up. She waddled over and peered at Alice's notes over her shrinking shoulder. "Some hieroglyphics," she said cheerfully. "Eton't make any sense to me."
"You'll understand . . ." began Alice.
Maud yawned. But her eyes glittered. She'd understood enough to be curious. Or she'd heard it all, and imder-stood plenty.
MacDougal Duff, meanwhile, went quietly into Isabel's room. It, too was large, an oblong ratiier than a square, with a mantel corresponding to the one in the sitting „ room below. He did not make for the clothes closet immediately. He stood just within the door and looked around,
Isabel's room was crowded. Furniture Uned the walls almost solidly. It looked more like a shop than a place to live. One had to thread one's way through aislelike spaces. There were also many shelves, and each shelf was full. Duff pulled at his chin. He opened a drawer. The drawer was full almost to overflowing. A search here would be quite a chore. There were quantities of things, all sorts of things, clothing, china, bric-a-brac, boxes, bottles, shawls, laces.
Duff shook his head and moved toward the closet. The door burst open. It was stuffed with clothes. He examined the sleeves of all the dresses hanging there, working rapidly. Nothing significant appeared. He hesitated over the dresser drawers, then glanced quickly into each, finding no outer garments, but heaps of silk lingerie, scarves, handkerchiefs, handbags, some of them well worn, and a box full of keys. He pulled open the top of a cedar chest. It smelled violently of antimoth flakes. Woolens in there.
For all its multitude of things, this room had order. He saw that things were classified, not piled helter skelter. These shelves in the comer held vases and china boxes. The shelves beyond the mantel held books and magazines. The chest beside the bed was full of linens. The chest beneath the window was for blankets and blankets only. If a stained sleeve was in this room, it was hidden.
Duff sighed. He opened the door to the hall a crack. The conference was stiU in session. He went to work with furious and perfectly methodical speed, then. Every drawer, every cupboard, the bed, the mattress, got a lightning glance. With utter concentration and not one wasted second glance, he searched the room.
There was no garment with a stained sleeve. Nor any sleeve that seemed to have been secretly washed. No signs at all.
Duff finished. He paused for just a moment over the book shelves. Harold McGrath. George Barr McCutch-eon, E. P. Roe. He ran his finger down the back of a pile of magazines. The complete issues, dating from 1939.
Duff went out of Isabel's room and wandered downstairs.
Mr. Johnson, the Indian, was brushing the stair carpet with a whiskbroom. When Duff stopped a step above, he looked up.
Dufff was out of tricks. He said rather humbly, "I want to ask another question."
"Sure," said Mr. Johnson pleasantly.
"Did you see anyone leave this house, evening before last, between, say a quarter of eight and a quarter of nine?"
"Just Josephine," said Mr. Johnson.
"You saw her?"
"I give a yell and she came out."
"To the bam?"
"Sure."
"Why?"
"I ripped my pants."
"Oh?"
Mr. Johnson began to wield the broom.
"Why did Josephine come out to the bam?" asked Duff patiently.
"I give a yell."
"Yes, but . . ."
"She hadda go down and get these here."
"What?" Duff clutched the banister. "Where?"
'To my bmdder's."
''And you .. . stayed in the bam while she was gone?"
"Sure," said Mr. Johnson. "I didn't have no pants."
"She brought these back to you?"
"That's right."
"You were marooned in the bam, without your . . ."
"I was nekkid," said Mr. Johnson. "Got a hole in my underwear, too."
"Why didn't you tell me!"
"What do you care!" said Mr. Johnson, as close as he ever came to astonishment.
"It makes a difference," fumed Duff. "Don't you see?"
"What the hell difference does it make, so long as I got a pair of pants on?"
"What?"
"I say, what's the difference if I gotta hole," shouted Mr. Johnson. "It's spring, aint it? I'm gointa leave off my imderwear in another month!"
Duff stared at him.
The Indian took up the whiskbroom and began to brush the steps, muttering.
Duff went down and sat beside the window in the sitting room and fell into brooding silence.
Alice came tripping in, carrying the portable typewriter. He lifted an eyebrow. "You wait," she said grimly. She began to type.
Isabel came in sidewise, in her diffident manner. "Oh, Mr. Duff," she said, "you are still here? How nice of you to wait." Was this a touch of malice? "Gertmde begs me
to ask you for dinner. Will you stay?"
Duff smiled. "I should be very happy to stay," he said. "Thank you. Miss Gertrude has been very kind."
But Isabel looked amdous. "Alice ... I beg your pardon, my dear. Do I interrupt?" She put her claw on Alice's shoulder, and Alice turned her face, her fingers still. "Alice, dear, has the doctor been here today?"
"Not since this morning."
"Is he coming?"
"I don't know."
"Innes worries me," said Isabel. "He does, really. Don't you think his manner is rather strange?"
"Mr. Whitlock has a nervous temperament," suggested Duff.
"Yes," said Isabel, "yes, he has."
"He thinks the house was entered last night," said Duff. "I wonder . . ."
Isabel said, "Tramps are on the decrease, don't you find? My mother often used to feed them at the kitchen door."
"Indeed?" Duff followed her willingly. "Your mother was both generous and imafraid, then?"
But Isabel was like a bird. You thought you had salt on her tall and she swooped away. "It does harm," she said. "Alice, dear, I think perhaps you are working too hard. The strain . . ."
Gertrude spoke from the arch. "Alice, dear," she echoed, "Innes is asking for you. He says it is time for his medicine. He seems very restless. Poor Innes."
"Oh, gosh," said Alice. The pillbox was in her pocket. "Ill be right up. In just a minute."
"I wonder," said Isabel, "whether we ought to have Dr. Gunderson? Or perhaps a nurse? What do you think, Gertrude?"
"It doesn't seem necessary," said Gertrude coldly.
Maud barged in behind her. "Alice, Innes wants to know what the heck you did with his pills."
"I have them," said Alice. "Fll be right there." She began to type again.
The three sisters stood ia the room, oddly indecisive. Their presence irritated Alice.
"He can't have a pill, anyhow," she said over her shoul-
der. 'The doctor changed the interval. It's too soon. Til tell him."
Gertrude sighed. "Mr. Duff?" she said.
"Yes, Miss Gertrude."
"Shall we see you at dinner?"
"Yes, indeed. Thank you."
"That will be very pleasant," she said graciously, and withdrew, making for tiie parlor.
Alice ripped out the sheet of paper, separated the copy, and handed the original to Maud.