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Show -148 You said you did." He trotted up the stairs; I heard the bathroom .door slam and a minute later I heard his cautious footsteps going down the hall. My older brother, heretofore dreamy, was showing a hard practical turn of mind. More than that-adventurous. It wouldn't have occurred to me to look in Alice's bedroom for answers. A few minutes later the upstairs toilet flushed; I raised my head and saw Jacob coming down again. "Nothing," he whispered when he reached me. "What are you two talking about?" Alice said. "Is there a mystery? We're going to have coffee and cake now-come join us." "Nothing at all?" I whispered back. Off in another corner Carlo was absorbed in a painting whose thin red lines criss-crossed each other at right angles, gleaming, precise and absurd. Alice went into the kitchen and came back carrying a round yellow cake. "There was a pistol in her night-table," Jacob said, "but it was bigger than a twenty-two." "This doesn't prove anything," I said. "We'll have to come back when she's not home." Jacob was right-I saw it clearly now-in this sort of affair, once you start you have to see it through to the end. "Adam had a wonderful mind," Alice said. She pushed a |
