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without getting jumped by the rest. Shall we go in to lunch?”
    “In the kitchen?”
    “No, the dining room.” Sarah recalled that the last meal she’d cooked for Mr. Bittersohn had been breakfast, and that he liked his eggs the consistency of old leather. That was one small part of her adventures she’d never mentioned, even to Aunt Emma.
    “We’re very high-toned these days,” she went on with a self-conscious attempt at airiness. “I’m sorry we can’t give you the full treatment, with Mariposa buttering your buns for you and Charles being grand in his butler suit, but perhaps you can come to dinner one night soon. Please help yourself to the salad, as the footman happens to be off today. I hope you like chicken.”
    “My mother should hear you ask that. She’s one of the old chicken soup crowd.”
    “That’s true, it’s supposed to be a cure for all ills, isn’t it? I’d better make some, and keep my remaining boarders healthy.”
    “Tell me about them.”
    Sarah was surprised to realize how little she had to tell. “Well, there’s Jennifer, LaValliere. She’s the young granddaughter of a woman who lives here on the Hill, and she’s going to Katherine Gibbs. At least I presume she is, because she brings home a textbook now and then. And a Mr. Porter-Smith, who does something or other in an accounting firm that one of my third cousins has an interest in.”
    “What’s the name of the firm?”
    “Come to think of it, I don’t know. Kelling and somebody or other, I suppose.”
    “How old is this Porter-Smith?”
    “Getting on for thirty, I should say.”
    “Oh?” said Bittersohn in what struck Sarah as a rather deliberately noncommittal way. “Good-looking guy?”
    She shrugged. “So-so. He’s rather alarmingly well dressed but pleasant enough in a chatty sort of way. Anyway, I knew Percy wouldn’t send anybody who’s fiscally irresponsible and that’s my chief concern right now. Then I have Professor Ormsby, who teaches aerodynamics at MIT and a charming lady named Mrs. Theonia Sorpende, whom I think I mentioned before. She and Professor Ormsby are both on the middle-aged side and he appears to be quite struck with her. Mrs. Sorpende’s what my Uncle Jem calls a fine figure of a woman.”
    “Where did you collect her?”
    “She found out about me from some friend of Aunt Caroline’s sister Marguerite, so she called and asked if she could come and see the room. And she was such a delightful change from most of the others I’d been seeing, and she liked the house and didn’t mind the stairs, so I took her on.”
    “Without checking her references?”
    “Well, actually, no. I just grabbed her before she could change her mind. Mrs. Sorpende’s a widow with no children.”
    “How do you know?”
    “She told me so. Otherwise she doesn’t talk much about herself.”
    “Doesn’t she?” For some reason Bittersohn didn’t look altogether happy. Perhaps the chicken wasn’t up to his mother’s standard.

Chapter 7
    S ARAH’S GUEST ATE FOR a moment in silence. Then he asked, “How did your boarders react to Quiffen’s death?”
    “They made the right noises when they heard the news, all except Professor Ormsby, who seldom says much of anything, but nobody acted particularly shattered. To be quite frank with you, I think we were all a little bit relieved to be rid of him, in spite of the shocking way he went. And right now, much as I’m upset about what Miss Smith told me, I’m wondering how soon I can decently rent his room again, because I’m so desperately hard-up for the money. What do you think, Mr. Bittersohn?”
    He shrugged. “How soon could you find another tenant?”
    “Oh, I have one already. He’s quite an old man, like Mr. Quiffen, but much pleasanter. Oddly enough I got him through Aunt Marguerite, too. He was bitterly disappointed when he found I didn’t have a place for him because the drawing room is exactly what he wanted. It has its own bath and it’s