I ran outside to look for her, Roland close behind me. It was a wasted effort. An army could have been hidden in the sea cane surrounding the trailer and the noise from the wrecking yard covered any sound the old woman might be making. Cursing myself for all kinds of a fool, I went back to at least try to persuade Roland not to inform the police.

Which turned out to be easier than I expected. Roland, leaning bug-eyed over the wood railing of his doorstep-platform, looked like he was too full of questions to know where to begin. I didn't know where to begin either but, once we were back inside away from the noise, I took a deep breath and plunged in. "Look, Roland," I began, "this is ... I think some kind of mistake's been made and an injustice is likely to happen and ... I'm going to ask you to give me some time to try to get things straightened out before you tell anybody we were here. Will you do that? Please?"

He gave me his quizzical stare. "If the police ask me, I'll have to tell the truth."

I sighed. "Yeah, sure." Had Jonathan told the police where we went? Did Charlie know? I couldn't remember. "But if they don't? Look, I promise, this is ..." Is what? I didn't know what it was. "Look, I promise I'll tell you the whole gory story and all the details if you'll just keep quiet until I get it straightened out!"

He looked like he was considering asking me to put the bargain in writing but finally he nodded. "Okay, Daisy, but you've got to admit, this is all pretty ... unusual."

I admitted that - quite freely. Then I tried to call Jonathan back - this time without the loudspeaker - but his line was busy again. Not wanting to stay and fend off further questions from Roland, I made my escape and headed back toward town.

As I drove slowly along the gravel road, I watched it carefully for any glimpse of Mrs. Arriola among the bushes but without any real hope. Even if I could catch up with her and talk to her again, what could I say? My one bright idea so far had been worse than no help at all ... The only thing I had to show for the trip was a piece of turquoise.

Back at the Compound, business was in full swing with a record turnout of customers for a chilly October morning - doubtless due to the free publicity. I managed to slip through the crowd in the courtyard without getting button-holed for gossip more than twice before reaching the relative sanctuary of my shop.

There I found Jonathan, grim-faced, trying to wait on three ultra-suede clad ladies who were debating the purchase of a set of metric measuring spoons and casually discussing among themselves the difference between pounds sterling and pounds avoirdupois, the rates of exchange between English and US and the accommodations on their last trip to Europe.

Functioning by pure automatic reflex, I took over, finished the sale, eased them out the door, then flopped into a rocking chair and glared at Jonathan. "Now! What the devil is this all about?"

He returned the glare in full measure. "I know nothing more than what I told you. The police came here looking for you and for her. When they left, I called David and that is all he told me."

"What do you mean 'all he told you'?" I demanded. "He said Jarvis had her committed?"

"That is precisely what he said."

And I'd been looking for a connection with Lucy. A connection with a vengeance, it looked like. "What else did David say?"

"David," Jonathan informed me, "told me just what I told you over the telephone. No more, no less. The he hung up on me. It seems," Jonathan added darkly, "to be my day for being hung up on."

At which point, I took great satisfaction in explaining to him just exactly why I had hung up. "She and Roland heard the whole thing," I finished. "And now she's somewhere out there in the brush dying of exposure or something. Why the devil did you have to blurt it out that way?"

With infuriating patience, Jonathan informed me: "One, I had no idea that my message was being broadcast. Although I was well aware, as we all are, of Roland Smith's passion for gadgetry, I admit that the possibility had not occurred to me ..." I stirred irritably. "And, two, damnit, Daisy, I was worried about you! You were out running around with a lunatic. You'd raised her hopes that those damn voices of hers were legitimate. If it turned out they weren't ... Well, such people are unpredictable. She might have turned on you ... Speaking of which, just what did Smith say about the voices?"

It stung like blazes but I told him.

Jonathan contented himself with giving me a long look. "And you still think the woman's sane?"

I had been asking myself that question all the way back from the lake. I answered it quietly: "Yes, damnit, I do ... Look here, did you tell the police where we went?"

Jonathan became very preoccupied with a bit of lint on his knee. "No," he replied carefully, "I did not. I did not mention that you had gone anywhere nor that you had gone with anyone."

I pounced. "Well? Why not? If you were really afraid that I was at the mercy of a dangerous lunatic . . ?"

Recovering himself, Jonathan raised his hand as if delivering a papal blessing. "I never interfere. You have the right to make your own mistakes. It is the nature of the human condition that each of us must, ultimately, stand or fall by his own judgment."

I locked eyes with him. "Bullshit!" I pronounced slowly so that he couldn't pretend to misunderstand.

Jonathan sighed all the way down to his abdomen. "Well, she did tell us in confidence."

That's Jonathan Bell. I beamed at him, then jumped to attention as another crowd of chattering customers poured into the shop while Jonathan beat a hasty retreat to his own store.

After the customers had departed, I went looking for Charlie Ruggles. I wanted to check - first hand - if he had talked to the police and, if so, what he had told them. The logical place to find him was the maintenance room.

Charlie wasn't there ... but Oliver Fulton was - crouched down in front of Charlie's desk. He didn't see me at once and - murder makes paranoids of us all - I didn't announce myself immediately either. Quietly, I moved around the workbench to get a better look at what he was doing.

Oliver was busily rummaging through the lower right hand drawer of Charlie's old roll-top desk, sputtering under his breath. - Well, have you ever heard a tenor mutter? Oliver looked rather the worse for wear. His thin, longish hair was sticking out in all directions. He couldn't have actually slept in his clothes but that was the general effect.

When he realized I was there, he jumped. "Oh! Oh, hello, Daisy. I ... I was just looking for the master keys. You know, Charlie's ring. Have you seen them?"

"Ah, no," I answered absently. My attentions were fixed on Oliver's turquoise necklace. "Er, didn't Charlie give them back to you? After the meeting last night? That's what he told me."

"Well," said Oliver, flopping into Charlie's ancient wooden swivel rocker, "they're gone now. I left then on the coffee table. In my office," he added - then, "Last night ... Anyhow, they're not there now."

When I departed, the police had still been in possession of the Compound. "So, who locked up last night? For that matter, who opened this morning?"

Oliver shrugged. "I don't know about last night. I was in jail," he added with a note of misty pride.

I smiled, remembering David's account. "Drunk and Disorderly? What was it like?"

"I don't know," Oliver admitted simply. "I was asleep. But, do you know what they did? They woke me up at six o'clock this morning. For breakfast!"

Definitely a cruel and unusual punishment ...

"And, when I wouldn't eat it," Oliver continued proudly, "they drove me home. Anyway, Charlie came over to my house and said he didn't have a key to open with, so I gave him my set. And now, I can't find his."

"Maybe Charlie got them back?"

Oliver shook his head. "No, he says he didn't. After I gave him my keys, I went back to sleep. I just came down about an hour ago. I had a lot of customers in and I only noticed they were missing a little bit ago. Charlie's working on a broken pipe over at the Leather Tree and I went and asked him but he says he hasn't seen them since he gave them to me last night."

The piece of turquoise was burning a hole in my pocket but this was beginning to get interesting. "Let's see," I reprised, "you put them on the coffee table when Charlie gave them to you right after the Tenants' Meeting?"

Oliver nodded.

That coffee table was in plain view through the window of Oliver's office - I'd seen the bottle of Banana Cow sitting on it when I was hunting Charlie last night. I hadn't noticed any keys then but I hadn't looked very close either. "What did you do then?"

Oliver started to say something, then changed his mind. "I ... just fooled around a little. Then I fell asleep. When the sirens woke me up, I went out and the police took me to the station."

"Were the keys still there when you woke up?"

He shook his head. "I don't know, Daisy. I just ran out. Then, this morning, they weren't there. I thought maybe somebody had borrowed them and brought them back to the Maintenance Room. After all, this is where they belong." With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the subject and became confidential. "You know, Daisy, that was what made me so mad at Jarvis. Foreclosing - well, that was mean of him but at least he'd be making a profit. But to fire Charlie that way . . !" Oliver shook his head in disbelief, then leaned back in the chair with a sigh of contentment. "Oh, well, I guess that all's well that ends well."

The missing keys - and the implications thereof - I decided could wait. "Ah, Oliver," I said as casually as possible, "did you know that one of the stones is gone out of your necklace?"

"Hm?" Absently, Oliver reached up and fingered the empty setting. "Um, you're right. I lost it last night ... Daisy! Maybe you'll remember, was it gone at the Tenants' Meeting?" One of the prongs was bent out at an angle.

"I don't think so," I said, watching him carefully.

He nodded. "Okay, that means I lost it afterwards. I know it was gone when I got to the police station. They gave me a receipt for all my valuables and they noted on the receipt there was one stone gone. That means I must have lost it sometime between the meeting and the Police Station ..."

I took the stone out of my pocket. "Is this it?"

Oliver fitted the stone into its place and bent the soft silver prongs around it, giving it a homecoming pat. "Thanks, Daisy," he sighed. "Are you sure you haven't found the keys too?"

I said, slowly and distinctly: "Oliver, that stone was found within ten feet of the body."

Oliver was rocking dreamily again. "Hm? What body?"

"Jarvis' body, damnit! In the kiln yard!"

Still rocking, Oliver blinked mildly. "I couldn't have lost it back there."

A policeman, I suspected, would have gone quite mad at this point but I was used to Oliver. "Did you go in the kiln yard?" I asked patiently.

Oliver stopped rocking. Apparently, the implications were finally beginning to sink in on him. "I certainly did not," he answered. "I never even went in the corridor. I ... was asleep in my office the whole time."

"That's what you told the police?"

He nodded stubbornly.

"Well," I said ominously, "the police didn't know about the stone but, when they find out ..."

Oliver sighed. "Who found it, anyway?"

"Never mind. But will you tell me where you went and what you did?"

"Oh, all right." He started rocking again, faster now. "I stepped out of the office, just kind of - you know - looking around at things and I saw Charlie going over to the restroom. Then, a couple of minutes later, Jarvis came in through the maintenance room."

"Jarvis!" That was a stroke of luck! "Who was with him?"

"Nobody. He was alone. He came in and headed toward the west end of the courtyard and I ... kind of followed along. I ... I thought I'd try to talk to him again."

"So? Did you?"

Oliver screwed up his face with distaste. "No, I ... He went on back to the kiln yard. I started to - I started to follow. Then I thought about it a minute and decided I was just too mad. I ... just came back here - I never even went in the corridor."

"How long did you stay there by the corridor entrance?"

He shrugged. "I wasn't looking at my watch."

Nobody ever does ... before the fact! "Did you hear or see anything?"

"No, I certainly didn't. If I had," he added self-righteously, "I would have told the police all about it. But I didn't!"

"What did you do then?"

"I went back to the office. I ... I wanted a drink."

"Did you see Charlie again?"

"He ... he was going back in. In the maintenance room - I didn't feel like talking to him."

That would help a little on the time angle. "While you were over by the corridor, could someone else have come in from outside? Without you seeing them, I mean."

Oliver thought a minute. "Yeah, sure. I mean, I wasn't looking this way. But it wasn't but a couple of minutes ..."

And no way of telling exactly when Charlie had gotten back. I dropped that line for the moment. "When you got back to your office, were the keys still there?"

He shrugged. "I'm sorry, Daisy, I just didn't notice. They may have been ... Daisy? You're not going to tell the police about that stone, are you?"

I sighed. "No, I won't. Unless I ... have to, some way or another." And, maybe they wouldn't find out at all, if Mrs. Arriola were safely on her way to Mexico ... I looked at my watch, torn between my duty to customers and a feeling that there was something else I needed to ask Oliver. "Look here," I began, "what exactly ..."

But Oliver looked at his own silver-and-turquoise mounted wristwatch and jumped up. "Daisy, I've got to go. I told Steven I'd take him to see my lawyer this morning ..."

I asked, surprised: "Steven's going to sue the police?"

Heading for the door, Oliver paused and blinked. "Sue the police? I didn't know you could. No, he's going to sue Lucy Jarvis."

I hurried after him. "Sue Lucy? What on earth for?"

Over his shoulder, Oliver answered plaintively: "I don't know." Then he added with unaccustomed firmness, "I'm going to try and find out. Bye bye, Daisy." And with that, he was gone.

And I still didn't know where - or how - Oliver had lost the turquoise from his necklace. My imagination is as versatile as anyone's but ... I couldn't feature Oliver hitting Jarvis over the head with a ceramic Coke bottle before stuffing him in the kiln. What I meant was, I told myself, I couldn't imagine Oliver stuffing Jarvis in the kiln either! I wasn't sure what I meant.

For the moment, I gave up on all of it and hurried back across the courtyard to my shop, feeling as though I ought to be making a list of things to think about before I forgot half of them. But Number One Priority was what was I going to tell the police about Mrs. Arriola ...

My shop was blessedly empty of customers. I locked the door, pulled the shades and wrote 'Out to Lunch' on a paper sack with a marker and stuck it in the window. Then I went through the storeroom and connecting door to beard Jonathan in his den.

Jonathan's shop is all polished walnut - real, not 4x8 panels - with a lovely musty scent of old leather bindings. Jonathan, who was discussing a copy of Rister's Southwest Frontier with an out-of-town collector, looked up long enough to give me a significant nod. While he finished the transaction, I took the opportunity to sit down on his antique leather-upholstered sofa and catch my breath.

Finally, the customer left and Jonathan rolled his chair over to join me. He had a smug expression on his face. "Charlie Ruggles," he informed me, "was here a few minutes ago - looking for you."

Naturally while I was out looking for him. "What did he want?"

"Two things," Jonathan replied. "One, he wanted to know whether 'them police' had found you and Mrs. Arriola all right. Now, Daisy, I assume that you have no intention of simply telling the police the truth and letting the law take its course?"

"That's right," I agreed. "No intention whatsoever."

He nodded. "I didn't suppose so. I rather thought that it might be a good idea if, whatever story you do choose to tell them about your departure, fits with what Charlie has told them. So, I asked him."

"Good Jonathan," I murmured as to a dog who had just brought in the paper. "And?"

"And he said that what he'd told them was that you had taken her to see some friend of yours. He didn't know who or where. I, of course, had already denied any knowledge whatsoever of your plans."

I didn't think we'd mentioned any names in front of Charlie but it was nice to know for sure. "Fine," I said absently, "I can make up something around that. What else did Charlie have to say?"

"Not much that I could glean any sense from," Jonathan admitted. "Some kind of a joke, I assume. It seems that when 'them police' came back looking for you, they let out that a certain broken teapot belonged to one Mrs. Morrison Balrymple."

"Huh?" I echoed, "Dalrymple?"

"No, Balrymple with 'B' as in 'buxom' so I gathered. At any rate, Charlie seemed to find it all vastly amusing. Could you explain or is it a private joke?"

I shrugged. "It's private from me, all right. Balrymple ..." It rang a faint bell but I didn't think it was anyone I'd actually met. The society columns, maybe . . ?

At that moment, the front door to Jonathan's shop swung open violently and young David Bell stalked in. "Hi, Uncle Jonathan," he offered the greeting dourly. "Daisy, why the hell isn't there a bar in this Compound?"

I blinked. "As in liquor?"

David settled himself, long-legged, on the Turkish carpet at our feet. "As in booze, hooch, red eye or rotgut. Damn, I don't know. Uncle Jonathan, if I get fired from the paper, will you give me a job here?"

Jonathan looked at him owlishly. "Perhaps. You realize, of course, that you would have to start at the bottom - empty the trash, sweep the floors . ."

David gave him a wan smile. "Sounds cleaner than what I'm doing now. What does it pay?" The young man looked genuinely distressed. I sighed, got up and fetched Jonathan's bottle of Bristol Creme and a glass - then, on second thought, two more glasses.

"Here," I said as I handed drinks around. "Now, what the devil's going on? And what's this you told Jonathan about Mrs. Arriola and a lunatic asylum?"

David drank off his glass and I refilled it. "That's it," he said. "It's the scoop of the year but I'll be damned if I'll print it. Sorry I hung up on you, Uncle Jonathan, but I didn't even want anyone to hear me talking about it. I don't know the old woman but, the hell of it is, that Lucy Jarvis is a nice girl."

Jonathan suggested gently: "Maybe you'd better tell us all the details. It might, ah, help to clarify your thoughts."

David held his glass out for another service. "Right. Look, this is confidential. Even the police don't know about it yet. I got it from the mother of an old girl friend who used to work at the asylum - I mean, her mother used to ..." He set the glass down and began making patterns in the nap of the carpet with his fingernail. "Okay, point one - she ... my source ... doesn't believe Mrs. Arriola was really crazy and ... Well, maybe I'd better start at the beginning."

"That might," Jonathan muttered, "be an excellent idea."

David extracted his notebook. "Just a minute," I stopped him and, without asking permission, rose and locked Jonathan's front door and put up his Out-to-Lunch sign. "Okay," I sat back down. "You can go on now."

David flipped a few pages. "Okay, from the beginning. Let's see, it was back in '54 - the story begins when Sara Arriola married Peter B. Jarvis. Respectively," he explained, "the daughter of our Mrs. Arriola and son of our infamous J. D. Jarvis."

I thought a moment. "1954?"

"Right," David continued. "Back in those days, inter-religious marriages were still treated as some kind of scandal. This was both inter-religious, a Catholic marrying a non-Catholic and interethnic. You should remember, Daisy, the furor when Kennedy, a Catholic, ran for President ... er, I mean, ..."

"Relax, David. I remember." I also remembered how ancient everyone over thirty had seemed when I was his age.

"Well, anyway," David blushed as he continued, "the Jarvises were Yankee, white-collar Protestants, while the Arriolas were blue-collar, Catholic and Spanish. Neither Mrs. Arriola nor Mr. J. D. Jarvis approved but the kids," he added loftily, "were in love and, so my informant says, they made a go of it. They had one daughter - that's Lucy - and, as far as Mrs. Arriola went, that was all it took. She immediately accepted her son-in-law with all due affection, moved in next door to them in Fort Worth and started baby-sitting. Jarvis was still pretty frosty about the whole situation but Mrs. Arriola and the young Jarvises, apparently, lived poor but happy for the next six years."

I nodded. Grandmotherly vibrations ...

David flipped a page. "Then, in '64, when Lucy was six," - that was sixteen years ago - "both parents were killed in a car wreck. A freeway smashup - nothing mysterious," he added, forestalling my question. "They hadn't left a will - there wasn't any money anyway, just the child, Lucy. And this is the point when J. D. Jarvis, reentering the picture, decided to claim his granddaughter."

Jonathan was rapt with attention. "Custody fight?"

David nodded. "Got it in one! You can imagine what happened. Mrs. Arriola had possession, so to speak, but Jarvis had the money and the position. It looked like being a toss-up in the courts. Jarvis hired detectives to try to get something on the old woman ..."

I was way ahead of him now. "And all they could turn up was a little informal fortune-telling ... and the voices."

David confirmed, "Right. Now, my informant was just a nurse at the asylum and her opinion doesn't carry any weight but she became interested in Mrs. Arriola and did some checking at the time. Jarvis tried to keep his name well off the records but it was his lawyers that set the thing up and his money that paid the examining psychiatrists. You get the picture?"

I got it. "So? What happened?"

David looked like he was repressing obscenities. "So, the old woman was committed, with a damning diagnosis, and Jarvis took Lucy back to California. He must have sent her off to some damn good boarding schools ..."

"I beg your pardon?" Jonathan interrupted.

"Well, he must have," David explained reasonably. "I mean, she grew up to be a nice person. Jarvis couldn't have raised her that way." He returned to his notes. "Well, Mrs. Arriola didn't stay in the asylum but a few months. According to my informant, she was grief stricken but quite obviously sane and, pretty soon, some priest tipped her off to recant about her voices. So, they let her out."

"And then what happened?" I asked.

He closed his notebook. "That's all my source knew. Records since then are pretty sketchy. Apparently, she didn't have any other family and she's just been living quietly in one Texas city or another, scraping a living with her needlework and various menial jobs. I guess she was scared to reopen the custody suit for fear of Jarvis having her locked up again."

Six years old ... "Lucy would have remembered her," I murmured, "but I wonder how they ever got back in touch?"

David closed his notebook. "No information. But do you see the position I'm in?"

I wasn't sure that I did. "Just how much of this do the police know?"

David pounded a fist on the rug. "That's just it! All that they know is that her fingerprints are on the wrench from the kiln, that she was in the asylum at one time and that she was released after six months as cured. They got that much by running her prints though the FBI master files. They don't know one damn thing about the connection with Jarvis ... or Lucy. I told you, Jarvis kept his name out of the records. The police don't have any hint of a motive and, so far, they just want her for questioning."

Jonathan nodded. "And you've got the motive."

"Damn right. If I print this, they'll put out a warrant and really start looking for her. If they find her, they'll have her committed again. The rules of evidence for locking people in insane asylums are a lot looser than they are for locking them in jail. I know, I did a feature on that last year." He paused and picked up and replaced the empty glass. "But the damn thing is, this is news and I've got a duty to the paper." He held out the glass. "Can I have a refill?"

I poured again and said: "Look, David, have you talked to Lucy about this?"

He shook his head. "I can't get in to see her. Either she's with her lawyer or with the police or resting or something. She's got a policewoman keeping people out. Hell, maybe I'd better just quit the paper. I'm not cut out for this kind of work."

"Look, David," I offered, "I think I can get you in to see Lucy. That or I can talk to her and see what I can find out. I mean, I know some other stuff and ... Would it be ethical for you to hold off on that story for a while if I promise you a bigger one to go with it later? After all this is settled?"

David looked me in the eye. "That would be ethical," he said.

Whew ... I looked him in the eye right back. "Fine. I hereby promise."

David suddenly looked much younger than his twenty-three years and very much relieved. He finished the last of the sherry and rose. "Thanks, Daisy. That solves everything ... I'd better go get some lunch." He grinned. "My appetite just came back."

When the door had closed safely behind him, Jonathan gave me a long, skeptical look. "And just what, exactly, are you planning to tell him later? It does mean his job."

"Damned if I know," I replied. "Whatever I find out. Did you expect me to throw Mrs. Arriola to the wolves? Oliver has more meat on him," I suggested.

"I have never been one to suggest reliance on such peripatetic elements as intuition," Jonathan declaimed, "but I am unable to envision Mrs. Arriola as a murderess. Why, pray tell, do you propose Mr. Oliver Fulton as an entree? I would propose the identical objection to Oliver as a suspect."

Then I told him about the turquoise.

"Unlike most crimes of violence," Jonathan reviewed the situation, "we have here a murder accompanied by elements which are best described as baroque. I would suggest that the very elements of the outré which inundate this case - beginning with a body in a pottery kiln - imply both purpose and preparation - premeditation, if you prefer. Normally," he continued, "I would specify that we provide the proper authorities with all such information we might possess. However," Jonathan's voice added emphasis, "in this case, I am inclined to believe that deliberate attempts have been made to inculpate innocent persons, impress them to service as scapegoats and thus insure the safety of the guilty."

"What are you suggesting?" I asked.

"The situation suggests," Jonathan was pontifical, "that this may be one of those rare cases where an amateur ... two amateurs," he amended, "may possess a greater probability of deriving a proper solution than those normally charged with such duties ..."

"In plain English," I interrupted, "are you suggesting that we try to solve Jarvis' murder?"

"I had not intended to phrase my proposal quite so bluntly, nor," he qualified himself, "quite so inclusively. It might be as well that we, ah, 'clear the underbrush' - so to speak, leaving the situation clarified such that the correct authorities could complete their proper assignments without being hampered by the encloaking subterfuge employed by the guilty party."

"Then you are suggesting that we solve the murder," I translated.

Jonathan rolled his eyes to the ceiling. Just then, I heard an insistent knocking on the front door of my shop and hurried to answer it.

My insistent summoner was a woman in her late 40's. Her appearance was what is politely referred to as 'matronly' - meaning overweight and overdressed, her 'figure' the creation of the undergarment-maker's art. The effect was not improved by the amount of jewelry adorning her overly ample bulk - hardly the usual at one o'clock in the afternoon and particularly around the Craft Compound.

I pointed at the 'Out to Lunch' sign but she displayed no indication of heeding it. I unlocked the door to tell her to come back later but, as I turned the knob, she pushed it open and stepped in. "Are you Mrs. Daisy Carson?" she demanded. "Mr. Fulton informs me that you are the manager here!"

"Well, sometimes," I hedged, wondering what Oliver was passing the buck about this time. "How could I help you?"

"I," she announced grandly, "am Mrs. Morrison Balrymple and I want to know where are my furs?"