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She was the woman with whom he presumed his father to be right now. And Virginia Allan sang at a club, or so Helene had said. He got up and put the cat in the chair. He phoned Helene’s hotel and left the message to have her call him here as soon as she came in. Then he sat down to think and wait, staring at the engraved card. It was obvious now that his father was more deeply involved than as a chance dinner guest at Chatterton’s.
    It suddenly occurred to him to wonder where Helene had learned Virginia Allan sang blues at a club. He remembered the words, for he had proposed to think she might be a ballad singer. Where but from Henri d’Inde?
    But in answer to Jimmie’s question, d’Inde had declined to acknowledge that he knew the singer. On grounds that it might tend to incriminate him?
    Jimmie lit a cigarette and began to pace the kitchen while the cat miaowed.

11
    M RS. NORRIS HAD NOT ridden in anything like “Sophie” since Master Jamie had mounted an orange crate on roller skates and persuaded her into it. She clung now to her hat with one hand and to the door handle with the other.
    “What kind of a car is it?” she asked at the top of her voice.
    “As near as I can figure, she’s half-Ford and half-Chevrolet,” Tom shouted.
    Mrs. Norris sat back, more or less. She was glad she had worn sensible shoes: there was no telling from where she might have to walk home. Not, of course, that she could find “home” if she were across the street from it. Nyack was never like this.
    Tom drove directly up to the hotel entrance. He tumbled out and ran for the building without a word.
    The doorman shouted after him, “Come back here! You can’t leave a can like that in front of the door.”
    “The lady’ll explain everything,” said Tom, and disappeared.
    The doorman came to the car window. He had the decency to remove his cap at least before sticking his face into Mrs. Norris’. “Can you drive this contraption?”
    “I might if I was wearing spurs,” Mrs. Norris said, and there was a burr to her spur.
    The doorman pulled out. “Are you looking for someone?”
    “We are. For Congressman Jarvis who is here at the ball.”
    “Jarvis, did you say?”
    “I did.”
    “He’s just left. I called up for his car not ten minutes ago.”
    Tom came out at a gallop and leaped in beside Mrs. Norris. The car seemed almost alive to his touch. It was very nearly beautiful, she thought, the grace with which he could manoeuvre something so ugly. He dimmed the lights and nosed Sophie around a curb and into position.
    “This way, if we have to, we can take off in any direction,” he explained.
    “We’ll be fortunate if it’s not in all of them,” Mrs. Norris said over the rattle of her teeth. “Mr. James has left. Or did you find that out yourself?”
    “I deducted it,” said Tom. “Herself will be coming out in a minute with the Frenchman.”
    “Mrs. Joyce?”
    “The same, cruel vixen that she is. We’re going to shadow them.”
    “In this?” said Mrs. Norris.
    “Why not?” said Tom. “She can do everything but climb a tree, Sophie can.”
    Mrs. Norris would not have been surprised to see her climb a tree. She laid a hand on Tom’s wrist; it was tense and sinewy, his hand tight on the wheel. “Why did this man send the message to the house, Tom, and both him and Mr. James here all the time? It’s only a minute or two since Mr. James left, the doorman says. I think you’re making it all up, just to get out on a lark.”
    “A great lark, with you along clipping my wings. There they are, getting into that cab!” Tom eased the car into first gear and allowed it to roll gently forward.
    Mrs. Norris, peering at the couple, and at her mind’s after-image of them when they were out of view, knew that if it was Mrs. Joyce in the cab, she was not there with Representative Jarvis: and that in itself portended trouble, so she held her peace.
    Tom had no trouble following the cab to the hotel where he said