“My dears, I’m worn out!” she said. “I can’t bear to stay in there by myself. May I come in?”
“Of course,” Judy said.
Mrs. de Courcey lighted a cigarette. She was nervous and jumpy and kept taking out her vanity and putting rouge on her cheeks, as if she saw a pallor there that no one else could see.
“I suppose you were talking about Vicki—it’s too awful.”
She turned abruptly to Judy.
“Were you here this afternoon about two?”
Judy glanced at me. “Around then. Why?”
“I was just wondering,” Mrs. de Courcey said. “Wondering if anyone might have overheard a talk she and I were having. It didn’t make sense to me, but if anybody had heard it who could make sense out of it, then all this might be a little more understandable.”
I stared quite openly at her merry, handsome, commanding face
