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asked. He helped Sean to his feet.
    “I’m sorry,” Sean said. “I hope I didn’t hurt the suitcase.”
    “No harm done,” Jed told him as he picked up the suitcase and swung it to his other hand. The suitcase was old and battered, Sean noticed. And whoever owned it was traveling light, since it had felt almost empty when he had knocked it over.
    Jed tucked the suitcase out of the way, next to the bellmen’s stand. Then he walked away, busy with his work.
    Sean found Edna Marker at the coffee shop. He was curious about Edna because she was an ex-burglar. A middle-aged, slender woman with glasses that kept sliding down her nose, Edna had seated them that morning when the Quinns had gone to the coffee shop for breakfast. Maybe I should hang around the coffee shop and keep an eye on her, Sean had thought. Private investigators spend a lot of time waiting and watching the people they are investigating, he knew. That is an important part of detecting, too.
    The small lobby outside the entrance to the coffee shop was filled with chairs and a lot of large potted plants. Edna was talking to Jeanne, the hostess for the dining room, when Sean arrived, so he slipped quietly into a chair behind a broad-leafed palm.
    “I’ve had eight compliments this morning,” Edna said. “Our band was pretty good last night.”
    Jeanne chuckled. “It should have been, with three solid hours of rehearsal before the show. It’s lucky we had any strings left on our ukuleles.”
    Three hours? Sean thought. Forget Edna then. He decided that there was no chance she had been the spy who turned off the pool lights.
    Jeanne continued talking. “You’re lucky you didn’t stick around for the whole rehearsal, Edna. You get so nervous when we make mistakes, and I pulled some bad ones.”
    Sean perked up. So Edna could have been at the pool! How could he find out what time she’d left the rehearsal?
    I’ll just ask her, Sean told himself.
    A group of people arrived and waited to be seated. Edna led them into the coffee shop, and as Jeanne walked by, Sean jumped to his feet.
    “Could I ask you a question?” he said to Jeanne.
    Jeanne looked surprised. “Sure. What do you want to know?”
    “Something about your ukulele band rehearsal yesterday,” Sean answered. “I heard you say that during rehearsal, Edna Marker left for a while. Do you remember what time that was?”
    “I don’t know,” she said. “It was probably around seven-thirty. Or maybe it was eight.”
    “Was she gone long?”
    “Not too long,” Jeanne answered. “Edna said she had a headache because she was hungry, so she left to get an aspirin and something to eat.” Suddenly Jeanne looked sharply at Sean. “Why are you asking about the rehearsal and what Edna was doing?”
    “So I can tell my brother,” Sean said. Without trying to explain, he said, “Thanks for your help,” and ran to find Brian.

10

    S EAN FOUND BRIAN AND Jennifer seated together in one of the wide rockers in the corner of the porch. He told them what he’d learned from Jeanne and said, “So Edna could have been at the pool!”
    Brian jotted the information in his notebook. “Jennifer,” he said, “just to cover all the bases, could you check with a couple of the others in Edna’s ukulele band? Maybe we’ll get a better idea of when Edna left the rehearsal and how long she was gone.”
    “Right,” Jennifer said.
    Brian turned to Sean. “Let me tell you about Martha. I didn’t get anywhere with my questions for her. Jennifer asked her for another rubber band, and while Martha was fishing one out of her desk, I said I’d heard she had a nephew working at the Empire Hotel in town. Her mouth got tight, and she acted kind of nervous and picked up some papers and tried to look busy. So then I said I’d heard that Robert and Palmer were friends. Her face got red, and she told us she didn’t have time to talk about her nephew and asked if we wanted anything else.”
    “She probably