Mrs. Cummack had run up ahead and was carrying two suitcases from the large closet to the bed as they entered. Her face was burning and tear-stained, but she was one of those highly efficient women of the home that rise automatically to every emergency and act while others consider. "Glad you've come too," she said to Alys. "Open those drawers in the bureau, and I'll pick out what's needed. Of course the ridiculous charge will be dismissed in a day or two--but still! Well, if they're all idiots down there at Dobton, we can come over here and pack a trunk later. To take it now would be nonsense, and Sam'll move heaven and earth to get them to accept bail. You just put on your best black, Enid, and wear your veil so they can't snapshot you." While she was gasping on, Mrs. Balfame, whose brain had never worked more clearly, went into the bathroom and emptied the contents of an innocent looking medicine bottle into the drain of the wash-stand. She feared young Broderick more than she feared the district attorney, who, after all, had been her husband's friend--had, in fact, eaten all of his political crumbs out of that lavish but discriminating hand. She recalled that she had always been gracious to him (at her husband's request, for she regarded him as a mere worm) when he had dined at her table, and felt sure that he would favour her secretly, whatever his obvious duty. Moreover, he was of those that spat at the very mention of the powerful Kraus, and would gladly, especially since the outbreak of the war, have run him out of the community. Mrs. Balfame, being a brilliant exponent of that type which enjoys the unwavering admiration and loyalty of its own sex, had a corresponding belief in her friends, and rarely if ever had used the word _cat_ denotatively. She called out the best in women as they of a certainty called out the best in her. Therefore, it did not occur to her either to close the bathroom door or to glance behind her. Alys Crumley, standing before the bureau and happening to look into the mirror, saw her empty and rinse the bottle. The suspicions of Broderick regarding the glass of lemonade flashed into the young artist's mind; and from that moment she believed in the guilt of Mrs. Balfame.