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considering Janet’s exhibition.
    The door opened again, and Henry walked in, pulling off his scarf. “Tina’s holding down the office.” He took in our tense tableau. “Am I de trop?”
    â€œNot at all, dear.” Was I managing to sound sane? “Janet, this is my son, Henry. Henry, this is a friend of mine, Janet Folsom, who says she did it and is here to confess all.”
    â€œDon’t joke, Clara.” She shook hands with Henry nervously. “I did do it—or as good as did it.” She began to weep again.
    Dan was picking up the scattered objects from the tote, and Sadd rescued the coat and hung it in the closet. I hauled myself up straighter in bed and said, “Dan, lock that door.”
    â€œYou can’t lock hospital doors, Mrs. Gamadge.”
    â€œThen put a chair against it, and sit on it, and somebody sit on Dan. Nobody’s getting in here till we have Janet’s story.”
    Henry picked up the phone. “No calls to Room Two-twenty. Mrs. Gamadge needs rest. This is her son. I’ll stop for messages later.”
    They dispersed about the room. Sadd in the plastic armchair, Henry beside him, Dan leaning on the windowsill, snow starting up again behind him. Janet remained by my bed, her eyes fixed on my face. Then, something, not a premonition—I don’t have them—made me say, “I don’t want the police in on this. Promise me, Henry.”
    The three men said, “Why?”
    Now I knew what that “something” was; it had been dawning on me fuzzily ever since Janet burst in. Someone whom she and I knew was trying to kill me, and I was about to learn who it was. Did I know this someone’s family? parents? husband? wife? Quite possibly. The thought of the shock and grief in store for them oppressed me. I must try to spare them what I could. The police couldn’t and wouldn’t.
    Janet’s eyes had not left mine. I was sure she knew my thoughts. She said, “Don’t promise her, Henry.”
    He said, “Start talking, Mrs. Folsom.”
    Janet cleared her throat. She spoke calmly now, looking down at her clasped hands. “About thirty years ago—1965 to be precise—I opened a home for children of Cuban refugees. It was the year Castro allowed them to leave and they poured over. The homelessness and hardships were awful. I wanted to model my home on Pearl Buck’s Welcome House, the place she started in the forties for Asian children. My husband and I—he’s been dead many years—always admired Mrs. Buck. I bought a big old farmhouse in a town called Bryantville in central Connecticut and staffed it mostly with people from the town. They were all wonderful. Except one.”
    Her eyes went to the blurry white window behind Dan. None of us moved. Perhaps trying to delay the revelation, I said, “I remember the place. Didn’t you call it St. Elizabeth’s Home?”
    â€œYes. For Mother Elizabeth Seton. She had children. Well, it went marvelously for about three years. From the start, donations poured in, and we began to accumulate more money than we needed. That can be worse than not having enough. Often when places of this kind get too affluent, they’re wide open for all kinds of scams and hanky-panky.”
    Sadd said, “Boys Town, for one.”
    â€œYes—remember that scandal? But they recouped honorably. You can only respect that. Of course, we were a much smaller operation, and most of the money was mine. Even so, when the blow fell…” Janet took a tissue from her pocketbook and blew her nose. Her eyes came back to mine.
    â€œThe director of St. Elizabeth’s, whom I’d chosen myself, was a man named Allen Quinn. He came with glowing letters of recommendation from some bishop in New Mexico, but I must confess”—now her look went askew—“that it was his personality that sold me. He was a good-looking man in his