In the Still of the Night

woofed at the door moments later and Lily let her in.
    “Did you get run out of the kitchen?“ Lily asked. Agatha wagged her tail.
    “Then let’s both get a good nap and hope nothing awful happens for a while.”
    She took off her dress, turned back the bedding and crawled into bed in her slip and was asleep in seconds.

Chapter 17

    The most prominent people in town had been invited to the Dutch dinner Mrs. Prinney had prepared. Dr. Polhemus, who always seemed rushed and gabby, said he had a couple of cases pending and would someone please alert him if one of them telephoned.
    “Old Mr. Jones keeps taking the splint off his broken arm every time his daughter leaves the house, and I’m worried that Johnny Barker is coming down with another bout of asthma,“ he volunteered, though no one had asked.
    Jack Summer came dressed in a violently checkered suit that he would someday deeply regret purchasing.
    Howard Walker, as police chief, had been invited before anything grim had even happened at Grace and Favor, but attended the dinner in the role of active investigator rather than guest, and was trying to overhear everything that was said.
    Robert had fretted about serving alcohol. “The old boy Walker replaced didn’t mind a bit,“ he reminded Lily. “He guzzled more than anyone. But I don’t know about Walker. Might he just arrest us on the spot?“
    “I’d guess not. Lorna’s murder comes first. But you better ask,“ Lily said. This was something she’d never considered. The house guests had been drinking since they arrived and would expect to go on doing so.
    Walker turned out to be mellow, if not entirely disinterested in Prohibition. “If Roosevelt’s elected, it’ll be over soon anyway,“ he told Robert, who was greatly relieved.
    Lily had also invited two respectable widows who were pillars of the community to the party, just to even out the sexes. They were the ladies who were trying, without much success, to teach Lily how to quilt. Fortunately, they were not offended by drinking alcohol, as Lily knew from the homemade gooseberry wine that was an integral part of the quilting lessons.
    Everybody assembled once again in the yellow parlor, but conversation was strained. Julian West took a place on the sofa nearest the fireplace and glared so fiercely at anyone who looked as if he might have approached him, that nobody even sat near him.
    When Howard Walker fearlessly sat down on the other end of the sofa, however, West spoke up. “Are you getting anywhere on this murder? I need to go home and get some work done. I shouldn’t have come here in the first place. You can’t keep us all imprisoned.“
    “I can, you know,“ Howard said mildly. “Unless you’d be happier at the town jail? The accommodations aren’t nearly as good there and you’d all be rather crowded.“
    “Jail!“ Rachel exclaimed, having overheard. “I can’t go to a jail! What would people say?”
    Dr. Polhemus called across the room, “Jack, how’s that wart on your foot doing?“
    “Fine,“ Jack answered curtly.
    “You know, I think I’ve solved the mystery of warts,“ Polhemus went on. “One is always the mother wart. If you kill it, you get all the rest of them. I think the wartiest person I ever met was the town butcher. I saw him when he was just a kid. Warts everywhere. I figured out what the mother wart was and you couldn’t find a wart on him now if you stripped him naked.”
    Robert leaned over to Lily and said quietly, “We have to be sure to get a family doctor somewhere else. I wouldn’t want Polhemus making small talk about my ailments and warts, if I had any.“
    “He always talks about his patients,“ Lily said. “Every time I run into him, he tells me about who he’s treating and for what. We’ll find somebody in Poughkeepsie or Beacon.“
    “Or Fishkill. I’d love to have a reason to go to Fishkill from time to time. Just to see who’s killing fish.“
    “Robert, you know perfectly well that ‘kill’ is Dutch for creek.”
    Rachel interrupted their conversation. “He isn’t really going to put us all in a horrible jail, is he? Our parents would have fits. I’d never get out of the house again.“
    “Never you mind,“ Robert said. “If he tries to take you to jail, I’ll fight him tooth and nail. Besides, he won’t. He’s just goading Julian West.”
    “Why would he do that?“
    “Because West, like all the rest of us, is a suspect in Mrs. Ethridge’s murder,“