now, and perhaps it is just as well that he died when he did, because he was not worth much anyway, but how about me? Here I have waited all these years to find out about the house and its mystery, and instead of finding out anything there is simply more mystery. Won't you please tell me what happened? Or don't you know? And did you really try to kill him three times and did he really kill himself?"
"You poor dear man," cooed the little lady. "You know I heard that you were worrying yourself sick; so I just simply had to see you before I left for Europe. Now I tell you what to do. You are to have the house torn down. When they tear down the dining-room you be there, sort of puttering around aimlessly, and you will see them tear into the wall by the fireplace and there you will find a passageway to the house next door. And in that passageway you will find the man who was dead for a hundred years, or what is left of him and his clothes.
"Then you will find that the house next door is empty but it was rented by a lady named Susan Smith, but she has moved because she is going to Europe tomorrow. And of course I read the will and I knew that the dining-room was going to be used, and I simply detest dust and dirt; so of course the room had to be cleaned, but I had lots of time, and it was a beautiful room when everything was dustless and polished. I even patched up the clothing of those two poor dear dead things, and when you and the man walked in I was really proud of how nice everything looked,
"I did not want the money and I am not sure that I wanted my cousin to die. I am sure that I did not want to kill him. In fact, I tried to forget; but I guess I went too far and suggested something to him, and so that is the way it goes in life when men are not kind to women who love them. And he must have killed himself. I was not at all sure he would, but when I read about it in the papers, I knew he had.
"And now I have one question to ask you. I am going to hold your hand when you answer it, because I want you to be very careful to give me the right answer. Perhaps you had better take one of those silly little pills first. Your stenographer said to me, 'Good God! Are you Lilith Lamereaux? The old Boss will sure have to take a pill when he hears you are here!' So take your silly little pill and hold my hand and look me in the eye and tell me. Do I look like a woman who would murder a man? Or do I look like a little wren who just loves to tap-tap-tappity-tap through life with her high heels lightly pounding beautiful waxed dustless floors?"
The old lawyer took a deep breath.
"I don't know, Lilith. I really don't know. But I do know that if I were thirty years younger I would go to Europe with you tomorrow even though I was sure that on the third day out you would toss my dead body to the fishes."
"You are a dear," she laughed, and gayly tapped her way out of the office and out of his life.
