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He’ll be back for some others in an hour. Big yellow Duesenberg. You can’t miss it.“
    “Is there a place I could get a drink while I wait?“ Cecil asked in a progressively more aggrieved tone.
    “There’s Mabel’s, but she doesn’t serve hootch to outsiders. They might be the feds and there’s a lot of them around just now.“
    “I meant a drink of water,“ Cecil said, which was an outright lie. He’d had his heart set on a gin and tonic.
    The stationmaster gestured at the water fountain on the track-side wall. “Help yourself.”
    Cecil got his drink of water and his pigskin case, and found a bench facing the main street. He sat down heavily. He was wrinkled and damp and had misjudged his footing along the way and fallen in some mud. He might not make quite the right impression. He found himself wondering if this trip had really been a good idea after all.

    Mad Henry Traver, his almost colorless blue eyes sparkling, his dark, straight hair blowing wildly in the wind, was driving a borrowed truck up Route 9, thinking madly (he didn’t mind being called Mad Henry) about his next invention, the parts of which were in the truck bed. He was so enthralled with the concept that he was thirty miles north of Poughkeepsie before he realized he’d passed Voorburg-on-Hudson.

    Raymond and Rachel Cameron were in their brand new Stutz Continental coupe, only a few miles behind Mad Henry. They didn’t miss the turnoff, however. “I still don’t understand why you wanted to do this,“ Rachel said, not looking up from her fingernails, which she was alternately filing and admiring.
    “Because I used to really like Julian West’s books.“
    “You don’t anymore?“ Rachel asked.
    “They’ve gotten too dark and grim,“ Raymond said. “But the early ones were superb.“
    “I wouldn’t have thought you’d want to get tangled up again with Lily Brewster, though.”
    “Why not?“ Raymond asked, flipping the butt end of a cigarette out the window.
    “Well, she threw you over.”
    Raymond turned to look at his sister for a moment. “She threw me over? Nonsense. It was the other way around.”
    He said no more about it as there was a roadblock ahead and traffic was at a full stop for searches for the missing baby.

Chapter 5

    While these individuals were approaching (or in Mad Henry’s case, going away from) Voorburg, Lily was in a frenzy of last-minute preparations. She had checked every room over three or four times just that morning. Suddenly she slapped her head and said, “Flowers! There aren’t flowers in the rooms.”
    She tore down the stairs and into the kitchen. “Mrs. Prinney, I forgot to get flowers.”
    Mrs. Emmaline Prinney, a large woman who obviously loved eating as much as cooking, was tasting her special secret recipe salad dressing and musing about what a mere breath of nutmeg might do for it.
    “Flowers?“ she muttered, coming out of her cooking trance. “The woods behind here are full of flowers right now. Mainly daffodils and a few tulips just coming in bloom. You might as well pick them before The Fate. The children will pick them otherwise.“
    “But what will I put them in? Do we have vases?”
    Mrs. Prinney took one more critical taste of the salad dressing, then opened the pantry door. “We do.”
    Lily saw that the entire top right-hand shelf was crammed with vases. Certainly, they hadn’t accumulated during Uncle Horatio’s tenure. His old Aunt Flora must have been the floral enthusiast.
    “Keep an eye out for ferns, too,“ Mrs. Prinney said. “A nice bit of greenery goes well with flowers.“
    “You’re ready, aren’t you,“ Lily asked.
    Mrs. Prinney looked at Lily, somewhat alarmed. “Of course I am, dear, and so are you. Don’t get yourself into such an awful tizzy.“
    “I know. I know. It’s just that it’s so important for everything to go well. Your husband will never forgive us the expense of fixing up the house if we don’t at least make a little money