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sons, but I managed. I was ready to get down to business.
    “I’ll introduce you to Rob and Will whenever you wish,” I said. “Right now I’d like to ask you a question.”
    “Of course,” she said.
    “Are you Mae Bowen, the famous artist?” I slid back in my chair and gripped the armrests, braced to withstand roars, rants, and recriminations, but none of Aunt Dimity’s dire predictions came true. Though Mrs. Thistle’s face fell, she seemed to be more vexed with herself than with me.
    “Drat,” she said quietly. “I knew I’d be found out eventually, but to be unmasked by my very first visitor is extremely discouraging.” She shrugged helplessly. “I’m simply not cut out for this sort of thing.”
    “What sort of thing?” I asked.
    “Subterfuge,” she answered. “I’ve no head for it. My late husband used to say that I was as guileless as a kitten, but he was wrong. A kitten would have concealed herself better than I have.”
    “You invented a new name,” I said encouragingly.
    “No, I didn’t,” she retorted glumly. “You’d think that an artist would have the imagination to create a proper pseudonym, but I couldn’t even do that. I was so flustered by the house sale and the auction and packing up my bits and pieces that I simply couldn’t concentrate on anything else.”
    “If you didn’t come up with a pseudonym,” I said slowly, “whose decision was it to call you Amelia Thistle?”
    “It was my decision,” she replied, “but I didn’t invent Amelia Thistle. I am Amelia Thistle.”
    “I thought you were Mae Bowen,” I said, in some confusion.
    “I’m Mae Bowen as well,” she said. “I’m Mae Bowen and Amelia Thistle.” She took a deep breath and went on, “I was christened Amelia Bowen, but my family called me Mae, so I’ve always signed my paintings as Mae Bowen. Years later, when I married, I took myhusband’s last name and became Amelia Thistle, but I continued to use the name Mae Bowen professionally because my paintings had become rather well known by then and I would have created a muddle if I’d begun signing them with a name hardly anyone associated with me.”
    “I see,” I said, though my head was spinning slightly. “Amelia Thistle is your married name and Mae Bowen is your professional name.”
    “I prefer to think of Amelia Thistle as my private name and Mae Bowen as my public name,” she said. “I hoped using my private name would give me more privacy, but it was a foolish hope. Both names are a matter of public record, so anyone can look them up and connect them to me. Honestly,” she said with a wistful sigh, “a half-witted badger could see through my ruse. As I said, I have no head for subterfuge.”
    She seemed so depressed by her lack of guile that I felt compelled to comfort her.
    “It’s hardly surprising that someone who paints the way you do would find it difficult to lie,” I said. “How did Keats put it? ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.’”
    “Beauty? Truth?” she exclaimed. “Oh, dear.” She turned her head to gaze dispiritedly into the fire. “I hoped we would become fast friends, Lori, but if you insist on throwing Keats at me before ten o’clock in the morning, it can mean only one thing: You must be one of them .”
    “One of—” I broke off as the penny dropped. “Are you accusing me of being a Bowenist ?”
    “I could be mistaken,” she said timidly.
    “You are spectacularly mistaken,” I declared. “I am not a Bowenist. I’d never even heard of you until yesterday, when my friends told me about you. Charles Bellingham and Grant Tavistocklive in Crabtree Cottage, right here in Finch, and they’re much more knowledgeable about the art world than I am. They recognized you when you showed up with the moving truck.”
    “Are they…?” She glanced anxiously toward the windows, as though she expected to see two sets of eyes peering at her through the