“Which, dear?” Cassie asked practically. “You’re hunting her in a way, or she’s your aunt in a way?”
“Both, sort of. She’s a courtesy aunt. And if you want to know the bitter truth, I regret the day the relationship was ever brought up. Look, I’ve simply got to talk to someone about this! I’ve reached a point where things are too fantastic— What’s that noise?”
“It sounds,” Cassie said, “like fire engines. I’ll go see.”
After a brief conversation with someone at the front door, Cassie returned to the living room.
“It was the fire engines! And what do you suppose, Bill, they were coming in here! They had a call to put out a fire in the cellar of Forty Birch Hill Road, but of course it was Church Hill. Not Birch Hill. I told Dever to hurry right over to Forty Church Hill before they burned up. Go on—do people call you Leslie? Go on, Leslie.”
“Well, I’ve got to find things out. I’m worried, even now.”
“I knew it,” Cassie said, “the minute you came through the door. You looked harassed. Just as I was. Tell us about it, dear. Or do you want to dig out something special before she begins, Bill?”
Leonidas didn’t even hear her. He was too busy considering the fire engines which Cassie had dismissed so casually as a mistake. He felt sure they weren’t. Someone had sent them- to his house, and specifically to his cellar.
Someone wanted Miss Medora Winthrop’s body to be found.
Cassie repeated her question.
“As long,” Leonidas swung his pince-nez, “as some few items are explained to my satisfaction, I don’t care where Miss Horn begins. Er—at the train, perhaps?”
Leslie Horn bit her lip.
“I’m truly ashamed of leaving you there, like that. But—oh, I don’t know where to start! I’m an artist. A commercial artist—”
“Are you married,” Cassie asked interestedly, “or engaged, or anything like that? No? That’s nice. He’s momentarily engaged, but Elsa doesn’t matter. You can’t even call her a wild oat. Where is Dow, Bill? He ought to have been back hours ago— D’you suppose something’s happened?”
“Something,” Leonidas assured her politely, “will happen to you if you don’t let her do the talking, Cassie. All right, Miss Horn. You’re a commercial artist; Medora Winthrop was your aunt in a way, and you’re hunting her in a way, and someone said she’d be here.”
“Yes. Well—look, I’ve got to begin a year back. It sounds silly, but I have to.”
“Isn’t it amazing,” Cassie said, “when you start to explain something, how far back you have to go? Take the Manila fever. That began when Bill decided to build a gabled cottage, and it turned out to be this house. That’s why he ate soap—”
“Cassie!” Leonidas said.
The girl drew a long breath.
“Look, a year ago I did some illustrations for a story in Womens Talk, and they had a snapshot of me and the author on a back page. And later, Medora Winthrop wrote and asked me if I were the daughter of her old friend Leslie Flagg who married Robert Horn, because I looked like her, and she’d had a daughter named Leslie. And if I were, she used to dandle me on her knee.”
“And you were, of course,” Cassie said.
“Yes. So I wrote her back, and then there were a lot more letters, and then some talk of a visit here crept in, and finally she set a date, and sent me tickets. To make a long story short, I came over on the midnight from New York, the night before last, and came out here to Dalton yesterday morning.”
“Yesterday?” Cassie said. “But I thought it was this morning. You mean, this morning, don’t you?”
The girl sighed.
“Both. I’ve practically lived on one train or another since the night before last. Yesterday morning I came here to Dalton, and Medora’s, and after five minutes in Medora Winthrop’s house, I realized that I’d made a grave error.”
“You judged her from her handwriting, didn’t you?” Cassie said. “I thought so. It was so neat and delicate. You’d never guess from that writing what an old harridan she was.”
Leslie Horn nodded as she studied the Sargent over the fireplace.
“Yes, it was. I couldn’t remember her dandling me, naturally, but I had visions of someone who looked like my mother and lived in a neat white house with apple trees, and a cat by the fireside. And I landed in that awful household! Why, before I had my hat off, Aunt Medora—that’s how she signed her letters—was throwing clocks at the butler— Look, d’you hear those fire engines again?”
Cassie went to the front window.
“For heaven’s sakes. I told Dever he made a mistake. He can see for himself we’ve got no fire—” Cassie stopped short, and blinked.
“Someone’s playing a practical joke,” Leonidas said. “Tell them so. Convince them. Add that I am ill with Manila fever.”
The girl looked curiously at Leonidas as Cassie bustled out of the room.
“Why,” he gave her no opportunity to ask questions, “why did she throw clocks at the butler?”
“I don’t know. Nobody seemed to think it was unusual.”
“Was there any specific purpose to this visit?”
“No, it was just the result of all those letters. From now on,” she added, “I curb my correspondence. No more folksy letters to strangers, even if they fed me prune juice. I’ve learned a mighty lesson.”
Leonidas thought to himself that she had barely read the preface.
“Dever’s terribly sorry,” Cassie came back. “He says if there’s another call, they’ll try to trace it. Leslie, if you were here yesterday, when did you get back to New York to take the midnight last night? I’m awfully confused.”
“Well, after lunch yesterday Chard went shopping, and Medora went to take a nap, to rest up for the tea party she was throwing for me. Then the phone rang, and that butler passed it six times without noticing. So I answered, and it was my agent calling. He had a swell job for me,
