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plant the other. George can stir his stumps for a change. Maybe it will buck him up a bit to learn he’s the survivor instead of the survivee. I hope Barney’s rent was paid up.”
    “Until the end of the week. If his heirs are anything like him, I daresay they’ll demand a refund, since today is only Wednesday. I’m sorry, Anora. I know you cared for him.”
    “Yes, but that doesn’t cut any ice. I know what Barney was like. You should have heard the way he carried on after your Uncle Fred died and he found Dolph had been given the chairmanship of one of those ridiculous foundations instead of him. Anyway, whatever the nephew says, don’t give him a nickel. You’ve got to be tough if you’re to succeed at that landlady wrinkle of yours, Sarah. As soon as we’ve got poor Barney safely underground, I’ll see whom else I can dig up for you.”
    “That’s sweet, Anora, but I already have one. Do you recall that nice Mr. Hartler we met at Aunt Marguerite’s? His sister is in Rome and he’s alone here in Boston, desperate to get the room. I’m sure he’d move in tomorrow, unless this thing about Mr. Quiffen turns him off.”
    “Why should it? Old people know other old people are going to die. We know we are, too, though we don’t believe it till it happens and maybe not then, if you can put any stock in that parapsychology twaddle. What do you want to bet Barney’s lodging a complaint with St. Peter right now? Or more likely trying to hunt up a nasty-minded medium to put a hex on the Secretary of Transportation. Whatever happened, I’m sure he brought it upon himself. No doubt he was bending over to inspect the rails or something that was none of his business in the first place, and wondering whom he should write to about it. Now, Sarah, you go lock his bedroom door right this minute. Don’t let a soul set foot over that threshold until George and Barney’s lawyer get there. Especially the relatives. Those Quiffens are all cut from the same bolt of cloth, and pretty shoddy material it is, if you ask me.”
    “Darling Anora, I do love you so!”
    Sarah had been properly brought up not to get sloppy with people, but she’d also learned the hard way that it was no good bottling up your feelings until suddenly you had nobody to tell them to. Maybe that fat old woman out there in her overheated, overfurnished cavern of a house with her fat old servants and her fat old drunk of a husband would forgive being told she was loved.
    At any rate, Mrs. Protheroe replied in a gruff but not snappish tone, “Now don’t you fret yourself about this business for one minute, Sarah. Take a little brandy and a hot bath, and get some rest.”
    Sarah obeyed and was glad later that she had. Almost at the crack of dawn, a sharp-nosed, thick-waisted, middle-aged man who could be nobody else but Barnwell Augustus Quiffen’s nephew was on the doorstep, set to go through his uncle’s possessions before the landlady pinched all the goodies. Or so his supercilious expression implied until Charles, who had taken the day off from the factory because he thought Mr. Hudson would have wanted him to, proffered a silver salver and straightened out the caller with a lofty, “I will tell the mistress you are here. Would you care to present your card?”
    As Mr. Quiffen did not have a card and was much shorter, less attractive, and infinitely less impressive than Charles, he was thus put at a disadvantage and meekly allowed himself to be herded into the library.
    Sarah, having anticipated an early-morning visit, was ready and waiting, but she let the man cool his heels for five minutes or so before she descended the stairs, correct in black-and-gray tweed and a discreet strand of pearls. Having picked up a few tricks from Charles, she entered the room with exactly the right degree of hauteur.
    “Mr. Quiffen?” She held out a limp hand and permitted him to touch the first two fingers. “Allow me to express my sympathy on your sad loss.