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at three.”
    Dolores and Brooks both looked rather downcast as they left, though no doubt for different reasons.

Chapter 5
    “P ERSONALLY,” SAID SARAH, “I found the salt of the earth a trifle on the peppery side.”
    She was doing the dishes, having complimented Mrs. Sorpende fulsomely on the truly delectable meal and shooed her off to be gracious to Professor Ormsby in the library. Mariposa wasn’t back from her relatives’ yet. Charles was down in the basement playing Bach on the stereo, for Charles was a young man of highbrow tastes. Max Bittersohn was ostensibly in his own basement quarters but had in fact lingered to dry the dishes for Sarah.
    “A highly combustible lady,” he agreed. “I wonder why she went into fits when I told her about Brown.”
    “Perhaps she felt any burglar should ask her permission before slugging a guard, though I got the impression she didn’t believe his yarn any more than you did.”
    “No, she must know her Brown better than she does her Romneys. Unless she’s well aware the painting is a fake and won’t admit it for fear of undermining the museum’s prestige. How come your family hasn’t pointed out that little discrepancy ages ago?”
    “The Kellings and the Madam didn’t get along.” Sarah told him about the fiasco at the opening: “So if anybody had said anything after that, it would have been taken for another piece of cattiness. Anyway, none of us ever went back. Except for Brooks I expect I’m the first Kelling to have set foot in the place since that opening soiree. And Brooks wouldn’t know about the Romney because his mother had a fight with Aunt Emma about Rudy Vallee back around 1928 and they never spoke after that, so naturally he’s never visited Aunt Emma. Anyway, she probably wouldn’t have asked him because Brooks is looked upon as a bit of a renegade.”
    “I wondered what a Kelling was doing giving bird calls at kids’ birthday parties.”
    “Laying them in the aisles, I don’t doubt. Brooks can be great fun, especially with children. He’s the original rolling stone, though I expect he’s fairly mossy as far as money goes. His father cut him off without a penny when he refused to go into the family wool business after college, but Brooks had a little trust fund from some great-aunt or somewhere. Kellings are always inheriting odd bits from here and there. Anyway, Brooks’s father died of apoplexy the day Roosevelt got nominated for a fourth term and his widow decided to become a female tycoon. She ran the business into the ground in about six months and skipped off to Zurich with whatever she could salvage before the receivers moved in, so it was a stroke of luck for Brooks that he’d been written off the books. Otherwise he’d have been stuck for whatever he had, I suppose. As it is, Brooks has managed to live more or less as he pleases. I’ve always been sorry not to see more of him, but my own father held it against Brooks that he didn’t step in and rescue his father’s firm and I think Dolph still does, though in fact Brooks couldn’t have done a thing. His mother must have been another Dolores Tawne from what I’ve heard about her. Maybe that’s why he keeps getting himself involved with female bullies. Anyway, Brooks never liked Aunt Caroline and I’m afraid he thought Alexander rather spineless, though he used to show up once in a while collecting funds to build homes for indigent bluebirds and so forth. I have a hunch Brooks didn’t come to see me after Alexander died because he was out of town at the time and didn’t see the papers, so he’s been under the impression I was left a rich widow. Now that he knows I’m flat broke, he’ll no doubt be camping on the doorstep offering to put on the screens and fix the dripping faucets.”
    “So let him. Where’s he living now?”
    “I forgot to ask. Some rooming house, I expect. He moves a lot. His landladies are always indigent widows like me and he gets to suspecting