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evening’s grist as he strolled back to his house in the warm darkness. The leaves of the big elms were talking; there was an oversize cameo moon; and his nose was filled with the scents of Hermione Wright’s flowers. But when he saw the small roadster parked by the curb before his house, dark and empty, the sweetness fled. It was simply night; and something was about to happen. A gun-metal cloud slipped across the moon, and Mr Queen made his way along the edge of his lawn on the muffling grass toward the little house. A point of fire took shape on his porch. It was swaying back and forth about waist-high to a standing man.
    â€˜Mr Smith, I presume?’ A woman’s contralto. Slightly fuzzed with husk. It had a mocking quality.
    â€˜Hullo!’ he called, mounting the porch steps. ‘Mind if I turn on the porch light? It’s so beastly dark—’
    â€˜Please do. I’m as curious to see you as you are to see me.’
    Ellery touched the light switch. She was curled up in a corner of the slide-swing blinking at him from behind the streaming veil of her cigarette. The dove suède of her slacks was tight over her thighs; a cashmere sweater molded her breasts boldly. Ellery gathered a full-armed impression of earthiness, overripe, and growing bitter. She laughed, a little nervously he thought, and flipped her cigarette over the porch rail into the darkness.
    â€˜You may turn off the light now, Mr Smith. I’m a fright, and besides I shouldn’t want to embarrass my family by making them aware I’m in their immediate neighborhood.’
    Ellery obediently switched off the porch light. ‘Then you’re Lola Wright.’ The one who had eloped, and come back divorced. The daughter the Wrights never mentioned.
    â€˜As if you didn’t know!’ Lola Wright laughed again, and it turned into a hiccup. ‘Excuse me . Seventh hiccup of a seventh Scotch. I’m famous too, you know. The drinking Wright girl.’
    Ellery chuckled. ‘I’ve heard the vile slanders.’
    â€˜I was all prepared to hate your guts, from the kow-towing that’s been going on, but you’re all right. Shake!’ The swing creaked, and steps shuffled to the tune of an unsteady laugh, and then the moist heat of her hand warmed his neck as she groped. He gripped her arms to save her from falling.
    â€˜Here,’ he said, ‘You should have stopped at number six.’
    She placed her palms against his starched shirt and pushed strongly. ‘Whoa, Geronimo! The man’ll think li’l Lola’s stinko.’ He heard her totter back to the swing, and its creak. ‘Well, Mr Famous Author Smith, and what do you think of us all? Pygmies and giants, sweet and sour, snaggled-toothed and slickmagazine ads—good material for a book, eh?’
    â€˜Elegant.’
    â€˜You’ve come to the right place.’ Lola Wright lit another cigarette: the flame trembled. ‘Wrightsville! Gossipy, malicious, intolerant…the great American slob. More dirty linen to the square inch of backyard than New York or Marseilles.’
    â€˜Oh, I don’t know,’ argued Mr Queen. ‘I’ve spent a lot of loose time prowling, and it seems a pretty nice place to me.’
    â€˜Nice!’ She laughed. ‘Don’t get me started. I was born here. It’s wormy and damp—a breeding place of nastiness.’
    â€˜Then why,’ murmured Mr Queen, ‘did you come back to it?’
    The red tip of her cigarette waxed three times in rapid succession. ‘None of your business. Like my family?’
    â€˜Immensely. You resemble your sister Patricia. Same physical glow, too.’
    â€˜Only Patty’s young, and my light’s going out.’ Lola Wright mused for a moment. ‘I suppose you’d have to be polite to an old bag named Wright. Look, Brother Smith. I don’t know why you came to Wrightsville, but if you’re going to be