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of ruby-red cut glass. I, on the other hand, was more taken with the draperies. They were of a particularly strong shade of mustard, fringed with purple, and graced not only the windows, but innumerable alcoves along with the entrance into an equally overfurnished dining room.
    “Nice fireplace,” continued the home-furnishings expert from House Beautiful, shifting in her seat to eye the mantelpiece, above which hung a portrait of Gwen decked out in sequins and pearls.
    “You must be happy for her,” I said.
    “Pleased as Punch.”
    “Those must be the stepchildren.” I pointed to several eight-by-ten photos on the velvet-draped piano. “They look a pleasant bunch. A credit to their upbringing. It can’t have been easy for them getting over the death of their mother and accepting Gwen in her place, however fond they are of her.”
    “You’re back to thinking about your own mum.” Mrs. Malloy lifted her feet onto a footstool hung around with tassels.
    “It’s impossible not to identify, especially with this visit to the bridesmaids looming.”
    “Life can’t all be bingo and nights out at the pub, Mrs. H., is what I say. That’s why in the thick of me own worries about Leonard I’m glad to be here. It’s clear as one of them plate-glass windows that for all this big house and her new looks, Gwen needs me something desperate.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “You mean you didn’t notice?”
    “Notice what?”
    “That haunted look of hers.”
    “I can’t say I did.”
    “Perhaps that’s because you didn’t know her when she was a kiddie,” Mrs. Malloy grudgingly conceded. “But I remember as if it was yesterday how she’d look when it was time to go to class and hand in the homework I’d done for her. It was like she was waiting for a policeman’s hand to come down with a wallop on her shoulder and a voice to boom in her ear: ‘You’d better come along with me, young Missy.’ “
    “So she’s the sort to make mountains out of molehills,” I observed. “Perhaps she forgot to put clean sheets on your bed. Or is afraid you’ll realize she made the egg custard that’s supposedly baking in the oven from a packet.”
    “Trust you to go minimizing things, Mrs. H. I tell you there’s something serious troubling Gwen. And it’s me duty to find out what it is and put her life back to rights before she works herself into needing another face-lift and loses a stone and a half she can’t afford to lose.”
    “Being already a pitiful size six,” I was saying when the door opened. A man of medium height with iron-gray hair brushed straight back off his forehead and a pair of very blue eyes came into the room. Having been taught by my parents to rise when a grown-up of either sex walked into the room, and tending to forget that I might now be classified as a grownup myself, I stood up. Mrs. Malloy remained seated, but I could see her eyelashes flicker and her butterfly lips shimmer a deeper purple as she moistened them into a smile.
    “Tell me you’re Gwen’s husband?” She was now crossing her legs at the ankles. They were good ankles, crisscrossed with the narrow straps of her high-heeled black patent-leather shoes. The man ceased shaking my hand to take appreciative note of them. Or perhaps he just had a kindly smile and a slight squint.
    “You’ve hit it on the nose, I’m Barney Fiddler.” He proceeded to take her hand and hold it even longer than he had mine.
    “Isn’t that nice!” His wife’s lifelong friend was practically purring. “I was afraid you was a plainclothes policeman come to give Mrs. H. a ticket for parking on the wrong side of the street.”
    “Mrs. ... ?” He turned, without releasing her hand, in my direction.
    “Haskell,” I supplied. “I’m on my way to visit some family friends in Knells.”
    “And you kindly brought our Roxie here on your way.” He was back to gazing down at her.
    “I do hope I won’t be in the way,” the wretched woman simpered.
    “Such