"Your sister thinks it's all right?" "My sister?" Skeet wrinkled her brows at me, and glanced to where the twins were in sight in the living room. "That was mother herself who called you." All the way up the stairs, Skeet following, I was trying to swing my rather heavy wits around to take advantage of this new development. So far, Ina Vandeman's voice, imitated by Barbara Wallace, and recognized by Chung and Jim Edwards, possibly by Worth, had been my lead in this direction. If more than one woman spoke in that voice--where would it take me? I'd got no adjustment before I was ushered into a large dim room, and confronted by a figure in a reclining chair by the window. Here, in spite of years and illness, were the same good looks and thoroughbred courage that seemed to characterize the women of this family. Mrs. Thornhill greeted me in Ina Vandeman's very tones, a little high-pitched for real sweetness, full of a dominating quality, and she showed a composure I had not expected. To Skeet, standing by, watching to see that her mother didn't overdo in talking to me, she said, "Dear, go down stairs. Jane's left her dinner on the range and gone to the grocery. You look after it while she's away." When we were alone, she lay back in her chair, eyes closed, or seemingly so, and made her statement. She'd been in her daughter's room only twice between the reception and that daughter's going away. "But the room was full of other people," a glimmer between lashes. "I could give you the names of those others." "Thank you," I said. "Mrs. Vandeman has already done that. I've seen them all." "You've seen them--all?" a long, furtively drawn breath. Then her eyes flashed open and fixed themselves on me. Relief was there, yet something stricken, as they traveled over me from my gray thatch to my big feet. "Now, Mrs. Thornhill," I said, "aside from those two visits to your daughter's room, where were you that evening?" A slow flush crept into her thin cheeks. The unreadable eyes that were traveling over Jerry Boyne stopped suddenly and held him with a quiet stare. "I understood it was my daughter's movements on that evening you wished to trace, Mr. Boyne," she said slowly. "It would be difficult to trace mine. Really, I had so much on my hands with the reception and inefficient help--" She broke off, her eyes never leaving my own, even as she added smoothly, "It would be very, very difficult." There is an effect in class almost like the distinction of race. These women spoke a baffling language; their psychology was hard for me. If there was something hid up amongst them that ought to be uncovered by diplomacy and delicate indirection, it would take a smarter man than the one who stood in my number tens to do it.