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‘looking for love’, she told me. (I could have told her to save herself the trouble.) Instead we spent much of the evening talking about that. Inez and her search for love. Her search for adventure. Her search for a bigger life. She was restless.
    ‘Aunt Philippa has almost despaired of me,’ Inez said with a hint of pride. ‘She’s utterly convinced I’m going to die an old maid. And I tell her – well of course I shan’t !But you know, Dora, I do begin to wonder myself sometimes. I know I look younger than I am. People always say I do. But I’m going to be thirty next birthday – it’s old . For a lady. Don’t you think?’ She glanced at me. ‘I mean to say – you probably … Maybe you—’
    ‘Oh, I already have a husband,’ I muttered. I hadn’t intended to confide in her. Certainly not. But there it was: the effect of her warmth, surprising me, inviting me to reciprocate. I had no close confidantes, and didn’t want any. But she was difficult to resist.
    ‘ You do? ’
    ‘Somewhere. I haven’t laid eyes on him in seven years or so. But I certainly had a husband. Until I woke up one morning … And there – he was gone!’ I looked at her astonished face, eyes filling with sorrow yet again, and I burst out laughing. ‘Inez,’ I declared – and I think by then I had almost come to believe it. ‘It was the best morning of my life!’
    ‘But why? Did he? Was he—’
    ‘A louse. He ran off with our savings.’
    ‘ No! And … children?’ she asked, tentatively. ‘What happened to the—’
    ‘No children.’
    ‘Oh. Well. I guess that’s something.’
    A silence fell.
    ‘Well!’ Inez filled it, bless her. ‘It looks like I won’t be troubled by any little rug rats of my own either. The rate I’m going. And it’s not like I’ve been starved of suitors. Believe me, Dora. Just about every halfway eligible gentleman in Colorado has thrown his hat in the ring.’
    ‘I’ll bet.’
    ‘Everyone in town knows I’m wealthy. Rather, they know my Uncle Richard is wealthy. And they know my aunt will be sure to make Uncle Richard make me wealthy too, the day I become a bride. It’s what Aunt Philippa goes around telling everyone.’
    ‘You probably have gentleman queuing round the block.’
    ‘Well – yes. That is, I did. I’ve lost count of the gentlemen I’ve refused. And it’s not that I’m fussy.’
    ‘Of course not!’
    ‘It’s just that the gentlemen in this town … I don’t like to be insulting. And I guess – well, maybe you see a different side of them.’
    ‘I guess I probably do.’
    ‘But they’re so darned dull with me! All they seem to talk about is business. Who made how many dollars buying this or that piece of real estate. And then they talk about hunting. Which is all very well, except I’m not interested. And then they talk about their automobiles. I spend half an hour with them and I’m already thinking to myself, well you’re such a dull fish – why, I’d far prefer to spend the rest of my life with my nose buried inside a novel than to have to spend another ten minutes listening to you.’
    I laughed.
    She looked at me curiously. ‘If it’s not too silly to ask,’ she said, ‘do they talk about their automobiles with you?’
    Just then the door to the street burst open. Two men, brawny bodies buttoned tight under high woollen waistcoats, necks sweating in collar and tie, strode into the room with such purpose and energy that everyone in the saloon, half full by then, paused in their conversation to inspect them. The two men seemed oblivious to the attention, didn’t glance from left to right, but marched directly to the bar. They looked grim, of course. And on the shirtsleeve of the man closest, I could see a smear of blood. Lippiatt’s blood. I knew it was Lippiatt’s – rather, I suspected it, because I recognized the men as having accompanied Lippiatt on his visit to Plum Street all those weeks ago. We – that is, the three men, a