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us.”
    â€œI thought they weren’t allowed to marry gentiles—as they also call us.”
    â€œThey do it all the time, around here. Yes, Loring says old Mrs. Bartram was interested in Martha Stanley.”
    â€œGood old tribal name.”
    â€œI never knew a gypsy that wasn’t called Stanley.”
    â€œIs her husband a member of the tribe, in good standing?”
    â€œNo, he’s dead. Died of pneumonia last winter. He was a friend of Pottle’s, and that’s why Pottle don’t want the gypsies blamed unless we get evidence against ’em.”
    â€œHave they any other influential friends?”
    â€œDoc Loring. He’s taken care of ’em for years; gives ’em a call now and then to make sure they haven’t any infectious diseases in camp, and that they keep the place reasonably clean. He says they’re the most harmless bunch of half-wits in the community, and don’t do anywhere near as much damage as the village and farm people do. He says they get blamed for everything, from forest fires to chicken stealing, and all because they ain’t Aryans. He says if he was mosquito-proof, the way they are, he’d like to be a gypsy himself. He says they’re innocent but astray; something like that. He’s quite a comical feller.”
    â€œ ‘An innocent life, yet far astray’; don’t tell me you have the Last Wordsworthian dispensing pills over in the village of Oakport!”
    â€œOrmiston thinks it was the gypsies; but he talks so much, you don’t hardly know what he really thinks. Mr. and Mrs. Beasley, they don’t think anything.”
    â€œWell, let’s tackle the other comforting possibility: a lunatic lady in a car.”
    â€œYou think that’s a comforting theory, do you?”
    â€œYes, because it assumes irresponsibility on the part of the agent.”
    â€œA crazy woman may be planning to distribute some more nightshade berries, and how are we going to prevent it?”
    â€œShe won’t do it again if it was just an unfortunate blunder. I assume a well-meaning half-wit, confusing nightshade berries with huckleberries.”
    â€œEven a half-wit would come forward, if she was well-meaning.”
    â€œWould she, indeed? If I were in her shoes I might come forward; but not in person, Mitchell—not in person! I should send you a letter from the uttermost fringes of the jungles of Central America. But as she is a mere wisp of conjecture, let’s eliminate her for the moment. You know what we are now up against?”
    â€œOh, yes; I know,” growled Mitchell. “Premeditation, and motive; but you tell me what these families had in common, for anybody to get at ’em through their children.”
    â€œI’ll tell you two things the children had in common. First, their age. They were all approximately seven years old; but of course that may mean no more than that seven-year-olds are just old enough to be allowed to play alone, and just young enough to accept berries from strangers. The nightshade was pretty well advertised, wasn’t it?”
    â€œAdvertised?”
    â€œDeliberately or not, who can say? There were berries on Tommy Ormiston’s sand pile, in the Beasley barn and on the slope behind it, in Julia Bartram’s hand; which makes it even more likely that mass murder was not intended. I mean, the two children who were found got treatment for atropine poisoning almost immediately, and Julia Bartram died only because she was allergic to it. We are to suppose that if Sarah Beasley had been found she might well have recovered, too.”
    â€œThe berries were left there on purpose, so some of those children could be cured?”
    â€œLet us charitably hope so.”
    â€œThen we have three reasons, anyway, why nightshade was used. First, the children would like the look of the berries, and be willing to eat ’em; second, they’d advertise the