Who's sorry now?

does,” Lily said. According to our Great-uncle Ho-ratio’s will, we have to earn our living for ten years here in Voorburg. We’re only allowed to be somewhere else for two months a year.”
    ”But if you wanted to go to college and could get a grant or something, wouldn’t that count as the ‘right’ thing to be doing?” Howard asked.
    ”It should be,” Robert said. ”But it would go against the conditions of the will and Grace and Favor would never be ours. Or at least not Lily’s if she was gone for months at a time.”
    And Mr. Prinney enforces this, I assume?” Howard queried.
    ”He has to. It’s his responsibility to make sure we fulfill the conditions,” Lily explained.
    ”So that’s why he and his wife live here?” Howard was still trying to get a complete understanding of this weird inheritance.
    ”It’s one reason,” Robert said with a laugh. Another is because Mrs. Prinney loves to cook for all of us.”
    ”I still don’t see how it’s fair,” Howard said. ”Getting a good education is important.”
    ”It’s not a matter of fairness, Howard,” Lily protested. ”It was the conditions we agreed to two years ago. It’s why we’re always scrambling for some sort of income. And to tell the truth, I don’t really want to be an anthropologist. I just want to know a little more about it. That’s why Dr. Toller is lending me some first-year textbooks.”
    Lily thought it was time to change the subject. ”I understand you were gone all day yesterday, and Ralph Summer has gone missing.”
    ”Not really missing. He got married last weekend. And had to move to Albany.”
    ”How are you going to do all you have to do without a deputy?” Robert asked.
    ”I won’t be without one. I’ve snagged one from Chief of Police Simpson from Beacon. He wanted to replace him with a guy who was desperate to get out of Buffalo.”
    ”Why?” Robert asked. ”Not that anyone in their right mind would stay in Buffalo, I hear. They say it gets more snow every winter than any other city. But if this young man he’s sending you isn’t good enough for another chief of police, why would you want him?”
    ”Because he has more potential than Ralph ever did,” Howard replied. A bit shy, but better educated than Ralph, and he really wants to be in law enforcement. You’ll like him. He’s a nice young man. I had Deputy Parker with me when I was up there in Beacon about the body in that horrible lake. You might remember him.
    He’s the one who rushed that typewriter to be fingerprinted a month ago.”
    ”Where were you all day Sunday?” Robert asked. ”I tried to call you.”
    ”What about?”
    ”I don’t remember,” Robert said with a laugh.
    ”I’m the one who’s supposed to question people,” Howard said with mock seriousness. As a matter of fact, I was in Yonkers questioning Edwin McBride’s old boyhood friends.”
    ”Do you think one of them had a grievance against him that bubbled up suddenly decades later?” Lily asked. ”That would be a good trick for a mystery writer to use.”
    ”In a way,” Howard said. ”His mother told me that there was a boy in the group that hadn’t been invited and didn’t fit in. She knew where the others lived, but not where he was. So when I interviewed the others I was curious to see if any of them could lead me to him.”
    And did they?” Lily asked.
    ”You’re still plotting, aren’t you?” Howard asked.
    ”Just curious.” Lily almost blushed at his perception.
    ”Okay, I’ll give you the story.” He didn’t think it would be right to give their surnames. ”I started with the ‘second-in-command,’ a man named Dennis, who looked as if he, his wife, and three kids were all from Scandinavia. Tall, blond, and healthy. He praised Edwin to the skies.
    Said he was both funny and honorable. He told me that Edwin wouldn’t let them do things they shouldn’t. He found interesting things to do. Circuses. Block parties, even if it wasn’t their own block. He even forced them to go to a couple of museums. When Edwin was unavailable, Dennis took over. But he didn’t know where the `hanger-on’ was.
    ”The second was a Patrick. A musician. Currently playing trombone for dance marathons. He hated them. They put people through hell for the chance of winning very little money. Men and women both fainted from exhaustion. Of course, the bands changed. Each of them did only six hours a day. He didn’t even remember that there was an extra