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Pruden, “and Jenny didn’t kill him.”
    â€œAre you mad?” she said wonderingly. “Of course she did, she was there, I told you so. Who else could have killed him?”
    â€œYou,” said Pruden.
    â€œWhat?”
she gasped. “How dare you! Everett, are you going to allow him to say such a thing to me? There
can’t
be any such evidence.”
    â€œWhy not?” asked Harbinger pleasantly.
    â€œWhy not?” she echoed. “Because Jenny’s a mute, she can’t talk, she can’t hear, I made sure of—” She stopped, appalled, and pressed a fist to her mouth. “You weren’t there; how could you think—”
    â€œYou removed the dagger from your husband’s body,” said Pruden steadily, “and you made sure that Jenny’s bloodied fingerprints were placed on it. A helpless child who could never deny your accusation.”
    â€œNo!”
she shouted, “how can you
know
that? You can’t say such a thing, I won’t let you, I won’t listen, I have plans and you’ve no right—”
    â€œEnough evidence,” continued Pruden, hating himself for this, “to convict you of very cleverly using Jenny to conceal that it was you who killed your husband.”
    â€œI’m not listening,” she told him furiously. “What evidence could you possibly have? I won’t listen.”
    â€œEnough evidence,” lied Pruden.
    â€œNo,” she cried. “Impossible! Jenny can’t talk; Jenny’s a mute. Everett—” She turned to him, but seeing his impassive face she burst into tears. “I can’t bear this; it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Everett, it
has
to be Jenny, don’t you see?” she pleaded. “Tell them it’s Jenny; tell them I have
plans
.”
    â€œWhat plans?” Harbinger asked gently.
    â€œI wanted . . . I wanted—” She stopped, confused and dazed, her lips trembling. “I had
plans
,” she repeated, and Harbinger, a look of pity on his face, went to the telephone and put in a call to her doctor.
    â€œAnd that’s how it ended,” Pruden told Madame Karitska that night. “Not a pretty story.”
    â€œWhere is she now?”
    He sighed. “In a psychiatric hospital. She insists that she’s Joanna Warren and never knew a John Epworth; she seems to have completely blotted out the last eight years. Strange, isn’t it?”
    Madame Karitska shook her head. “Not so strange,” she said. “From what her friend Abby told you she was very likable in those days, ambitious but likable. I would guess that she can’t face what she’s become and what she did.”
    He nodded. “She must have felt like Cinderella when John Epworth proposed marriage to her.” He stopped and then added sadly, “My guess is that she learned money was no substitute for love, and with no grounds for divorce she began dreaming of being a rich young widow in the south of France, and finding love at last with a husband her own age.” He shrugged. “But we’ll never know.”
    He suddenly smiled. “Ironically, there’s one happy note to add to this story of vanity and greed. . . . John Epworth had at last found a teacher of sign language shortly before his death. She arrived at the home yesterday, and it’s hoped that in a few weeks, a month at most, Jenny will have learned enough to verify our evidence.
    â€œThat evidence,” he added dryly, “that we only hoped we had, but could never have proved in court.”

5

    The next morning Madame Karitska saw three clients in succession and then, with Georges Verlag still on her mind, she made a brief phone call to a man by the name of Amos Herzog.
    â€œMy dear Countess,” he said, “come at once. I have just completed writing my chapter on Earnestine Boulanger, who poisoned three husbands, and she has proved the most