Now, thank God, he had gone, and Pat was able to relax with coffee and cigarettes. She had not dared to admit to him that she was curious about what was happening next door, for he took a dim view of gossip and snooping, as he called it. Albert the cat prowled the room hoping Pat had overlooked a scrap of bacon. Mark's dog, Jud, a big black Labrador fondly known as the laziest dog in Maryland, was sprawled on the braided rug before the fireplace.

It was a charming, if slightly bizarre, room. Pat's eyes, accustomed to its eccentricities, passed over without heeding them, but a stranger would have been amused or appalled by some of the details. The large, high-ceilinged chamber was half-paneled, in the Georgian style, but the carving on the wooden chimneypiece was pure Gothic, with fantastic pointed arches supporting the mantel. Equally fantastic was the oriel window on whose wide cushioned seat Pat had settled, with its leaded panes and trefoil arches. The architecture demanded massive furniture, like the heavy four-poster bed; but the hangings and spread were of flowered print whose colors matched the lavender and blue and rose shades of the braided rug where Jud snored in canine comfort. Pat doubted that the dog had any notion of guarding her; Mark had lighted the fire before he left and Jud had simply sought out the warmest place in the house. Jerry always said Jud was an ideal watchdog. He was so clumsy and so affectionate that a burglar would be bound to trip over him and break a leg, giving them plenty of time to telephone the police.

Resolutely Pat turned her eyes from the room she and Jerry had shared to the view out of the window. The moving men had removed the shrouding cloths from some of the objects before they carried them into the house.