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closed, and he took me aside and told me how he was real pleased that I’d saved his son’s life and all, but just equally pleased about the fate of them curls (Francis must have told him), and Mrs. Wellgrove, she gave me the little photo of her son, and this, too. Look.”
    Cuffy pried up the tiny oval glass and then the child’s picture beneath; under that, pressed against the gold, was a round ringlet like a coil of fine red copper wire.
    â€œHis? Francis Wellgrove’s? After all these years?” It looked so young, so living still, as if it had been clipped an hour ago from some child’s curly head.
    â€œYes, his,” said Cuffy. “My sister Marcella, she saw him in Milwaukee ten, eleven years ago and—wouldn’t you know it?—he was bald as a doorknob, she told me. Rich and bald, but he’d turned out to be a real nice man, she said.”
    â€œWhat happened to his sister Ethel, did she get better?” Randy wanted to know.
    â€œOh, Ethel! Why she grew up and went to Europe and married a real live prince. Eyetalian. I always knew how much that must please her mama who had a high opinion of princes from the way she talked.… Oh, we heard from ’em for years, the whole family, and Francis always sent me birthday presents. He was a nice little boy after his hair got cut and even before it, I realize now. Yes, they were lovely people and that was a lovely, lovely summer.”
    Cuffy sighed and yawned. She snapped the brooch shut and put it back, haphazard, where it belonged.
    â€œAll right, now,” she said, getting to her feet. “It’s late! Good gracious, look how late it is! I’m going to start supper right away, and I need space. Whatever you’re looking for don’t look for it in here. In half an hour, Randy, you can set the table. And someone please let the dogs out.”
    Randy and Oliver let themselves out, too, watching the dogs hurtling around the lawn, ears flying.
    â€œIt’s funny how you can know a person all your life,” said Oliver, “and still there’s secrets to find out.”
    â€œIt’s half nice and half horrid,” agreed Randy. “But I suppose it keeps things interesting. Doesn’t it?” she asked a little doubtfully.
    â€œHmm. I wonder if Willy’s got any secrets we don’t know about,” said Oliver in another tone entirely, and they went off to find him.
    Willy Sloper had his own apartment over the stable. Long ago, in New York, he had been the Melendys’ furnace man. When they had moved to the country, naturally, they had asked him to come along, for the whole family loved him, and he could do anything: plumbing, carpentry, house-painting, and even—as he had proved since they had lived here—farming, landscaping, animal husbandry, and gardening. He also knew how to cook, whittle, and play the recorder.
    They found him in the stable, grooming Lorna Doone, the brown horse. Jess and Damon, the team of work horses had been loaned out indefinitely to Mr. Addison, a farmer friend.
    â€œWhat’ll we do?” whispered Randy. “We can’t just go and start searching him, very well.”
    â€œI’ll fix it,” said Oliver and went right up to Willy and asked him, politely, of course, to show them everything that was in his pockets.
    â€œWe have a reason for this, Willy,” Randy assured him anxiously. “It’s not just, you know, frivolity.”
    â€œCops after me again?” asked Willy good-naturedly, and emptied out his pockets and showed them what he had: a dollar bill and thirty-seven cents; a pair of pliers, a monkey wrench, three pencils, a handkerchief, a cough drop, a small can of machine oil, a comb with five teeth missing, a pack of cards, and a watch. No clue.
    â€œMay I please examine the inside of your cap, Willy?” asked Oliver; but that revealed nothing either.
    â€œHave you noticed any writing about