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who wasn’t picnicking in Pine Grove or swimming in Slocum Lake.
    Opinion, as Mr Queen ascertained by prowling around town Monday and keeping his steel-trap ears open, was divided. J. C. Pettigrew, Donald Mackenzie, and the rest of the Rotary bunch, who were half Country Club and half tradespeople, generally opined that Jim Haight ought to be run out on a rail. The ladies were stoutly against this: Jim was a nice young man; whatever’d happened between him and Nora Wright three years ago wasn’t his fault, you can bet your last year’s bonnet!
    Frank Lloyd disappeared. Phinny Baker said his boss had gone off on a hunting trip up in the Mahoganies. Emmeline DuPré sniffed. ‘It’s funny Frank Lloyd should go hunting the very next morning after James Haight gets back to Wrightsville. Ran away, of course. That big windbag!’ Emmy was disappointed that Frank hadn’t taken one of his deer rifles and gone stalking through the streets of Wrightsville for Jim, like Owen Wister’s Virginian (starring, however, Gary Cooper).
    Old Soak Anderson, the town problem, discovered by Mr Queen Monday noon lying on the stone pedestal of the Low Village World War Memorial, rubbed his salt-and-pepper stubble and declaimed: ‘“O most lame and impotent conclusion!”’
    â€˜Are you feeling well this morning, Mr Anderson?’ asked Ellery, concerned.
    â€˜Never better, sir. But my point is one with the Proverb, the twenty-sixth, I believe, which states: “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein.” I refer, of course, to the reappearance in this accursed community of Jim Haight. Sow the wind, sir; sow the wind!’
    The yeast in all this ferment acted strangely. Having returned to Wrightsville, Jim Haight shut himself up in his room at Upham House; he even had his meals served there, according to Ma Upham. Whereas Nora Wright, the prisoner, began to show herself! Not in public, of course. But on Monday afternoon she watched Pat and Ellery play three sets of tennis on the grass court behind the Wright house, lying in a deck chair in the sun, her eyes protected by dark glasses hooked over her spectacles; and she kept smiling faintly. On Monday evening she strolled over with Pat and a hostile Carter Bradford ‘to see how you’re coming along with your book, Mr Smith.’ Ellery had Alberta Manaskas serve tea and oatmeal cookies; he treated Nora quite as if she were in the habit of dropping in. And then on Tuesday night…
    Tuesday night was bridge night at the Wrights.’ Carter Bradford usually came to dinner, and Carter and Pat paired against Hermione and John F. Hermy thought it might be ‘nice’ to have Mr Smith in on Tuesday, August twenty-seventh to make a fifth; and Ellery accepted with alacrity.
    â€˜I’d much rather watch tonight,’ said Pat. ‘Carter dear—you and Pop against Ellery and Mother. I’ll heckle.’
    â€˜Come on, come on, we’re losing time,’ said John F. ‘Stakes, Smith? It’s your option.’
    â€˜Makes no difference to me,’ said Ellery. ‘Suppose I toss the honour over to Bradford.’
    â€˜In that case,’ said Hermy quickly, ‘let’s play for a tenth. Carter, why don’t they pay Prosecutors more?’ Then she brightened. ‘When you’re Governor…’
    â€˜Penny a point,’ said Carter; his lean face was crimson.
    â€˜But Cart, I didn’t mean—’ wailed Hermione.
    â€˜If Cart wants to play for a cent, by all means play for a cent,’ said Pat firmly. ‘I’m sure he’ll win!’
    â€˜Hello,’ said Nora. She had not come down to dinner—Hermy had said something about a ‘headache.’ Now Nora was smiling at them from the foyer. She came in with a basket of knitting and sat down in the big chair under a piano lamp. ‘I’m really winning the war for Britain,’ she smiled, ‘all by