Then she moved to her favorite chair at the bay window and set herself to think.

If Leona’s death was connected with the murder of her parents, what could the connection be? Leona and her mother had never been friends. So Leona and her father, nurse and doctor, must have seen, or found out…something to be killed for.

If that was so, if the two had died because they knew the same thing, had seen the same thing (whatever), why the gap in time between the murders? Catherine asked herself. Could Leona have been so difficult to kill that six months had lapsed before the murderer had had another chance?

She shifted restlessly. Hers was not the kind of intelligence that asserted itself in orderly trains of reasoning but the kind that mulled in secret and then presented her, so to speak, with a conclusion.

Instead of undertaking the calm application of logic she had set herself to perform, she found herself dwelling with resentment on the suspicion in James Galton’s face when he told her that the dead woman was Leona Gaites. When Catherine’s restlessness goaded her into the bedroom to begin dressing, she was still gnawing at the shock that suspicion had made her feel.

While she was brushing her teeth, Catherine decided she was arrogant.

Why should he not suspect her? In all the mystery novels she had read, the finder-of-the-body was suspect.

I never realized how much pride I take in being who I am, she thought. I expect my lineage to speak for me; I think “Scott Linton” means “above reproach.” The “Catherine”-that’s the important part. That’s just me.

She looked in the mirror over the sink and surveyed the toothpaste surrounding her mouth in a white froth.

“Gorgeous,” she muttered. “Like a mad dog.”

The word mad triggered another train of thought. Perhaps Sheriff Galton thought she was seriously crazy? Not just neurotic, but psychotic?