Twelve
I
In her spotlessly kept bedroom, Kirsten Lindstrom plaited her grizzledblonde hair into two unbecoming plaits and prepared for bed.
She was worried and afraid.
The police didn’t like foreigners. She had been in England so long thatshe herself did not feel foreign. But the police could not know that.
That Dr. Calgary—why did he have to come and do this to her?
Justice had been done. She thought of Jacko—and repeated to herselfthat justice had been done.
She thought of him as she had known him from a small boy.
Always, yes, always, a liar¹ and a cheat! But so charming, so engaging. Al-ways one forgave him. Always one tried to shield him from punishment.
He lied so well. That was the horrible truth. He lied so well that one be-lieved him—that one couldn’t help believing him. Wicked, cruel Jacko.
Dr. Calgary might think he knew what he was talking about! But Dr. Cal-gary was wrong. Places and times and alibis² indeed! Jacko could arrangethings of that kind easily enough. Nobody really knew Jacko as she hadknown him.
Would anybody believe her if she told them just exactly what Jacko waslike? And now—tomorrow, what was going to happen? The police wouldcome. And everyone so unhappy, so suspicious. Looking at each other …Not sure what to believe.
And she loved them all so much … so much. She knew more about themall than anyone else could know. Far more than Mrs. Argyle had everknown. For Mrs. Argyle had been blinded by her intense maternal³ pos-sessiveness. They were her children—she saw them always as belongingto her. But Kirsten had seen them as individuals—as themselves—with alltheir faults and virtues⁴. If she had had children of her own, she mighthave felt possessive about them, she supposed. But she was not pre-emin-ently a maternal woman. Her principal love would have been for the hus-band she had never had.
Women like Mrs. Argyle were difficult for her to understand. Crazyabout a lot of children who were not her own, and treating her husbandas though he were not there! A good man, too, a fine man, none better.
Neglected, pushed aside. And Mrs. Argyle too self-absorbed to notice whatwas happening under her nose. That secretary—a good-looking girl andevery inch a woman. Well, it was not too late for Leo—or was it too latenow? Now, with murder raising its head from the grave in which it hadbeen laid, would those two ever dare to come together?

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