Someone to watch over me

him anything, I guess.“
    “If Jack were interested, he’s just as capable as you two were at ferreting out the information I needed,“ Howard said.
    “The Sleuthing Siblings,“ Robert said. “What do you think of that?“
    “Euuw,“ Howard said. “You don’t like it?“
    “I just have an aversion to alliterations. Especially bad ones.”
    Lily wasn’t amused. “I really hate that we pushed ourselves into other people’s private lives.“
    “If you hadn’t, two deaths would probably have remained unsolved for much longer,“ Phoebe said.
    “What will happen to Eugene and Mr. White, Elgin?“ Mrs. Prinney asked.
    He raised his shoulders. “I can’t speculate. I’ve seen too many cases of justice not working as it should. Most often it does. But I’m still astonished that they both confessed so easily. I only had one case before like that, and it was a thug who was bragging about killing his wife. Those who commit crimes of any sort always try to play the innocent.”
    He sounded a bit put out about this difference and went on, almost bitterly, “I’ll have to get a diary and start with today. Because it’s never going to happen again.”
    There was a long raucous blast of horn in the driveway and they all got up to see what was going on. All but Howard Walker, who sat over his coffee, still brooding about his good luck.
    A big white truck had pulled in. A man was opening the back doors, and a sturdy woman was putting folding steps up to it. Neither person was familiar to any of them.
    “We’re the traveling store,“ the man said. “Mrs. Henry White hired us. Would you like to see what we’ve got in here?”
    Mrs. Prinney was hoisted aboard. She’d broken her cast-iron cornbread mold and was looking for another. Mr. Prinney went inside Grace and Favor, shaking his head. Phoebe joined Mrs. Prinney, hoping to find some material and ribbons for her hats. Robert and Lily took a quick look around, while Agatha barked her head off.
    Lily said, “We have nothing to contribute.“
    “And nothing we need,“ Robert added. As an aside to Lily, as they headed around the house to sit outside and look over the river, he added, “Maybe the next time it comes around, we could put in chits offering ourselves as private investigators.”
    Lily ignored this suggestion. When they’d established themselves on the bench where they customarily sat to gaze out over the landscape and talk things over, she said, “I just realized we got it backward.“
    “Got what backward?“
    “You were the one who was working on finding out who the mummy was, and I figured it out.“
    “And you were overwrought about Roxanne being arrested for her husband’s death, and I found the final clues,“ Robert said. He slapped his head with an exaggerated comic gesture and added, “I guess this proves the old adage that two heads are better than one.“
    “I think it only proves that we snooped into matters that were none of our business.“
    “But Lily, Bernard VanZillen will be buried decently instead of in a pauper’s grave. And Roxanne won’t have to spend the rest of her life worrying that maybe her brother killed her husband— deliberately.”
    As Lily flounced back to the mansion, she had the last word. “Robert, I just hate it when you say something so intelligent.”