"I ..." said Douglas, and stopped.
The sun buzzed in the sky for about five seconds.
"My gosh ..." whispered Charlie at last.
Tom waited, smiling.
"It didn't look like the Lonely One at all," gasped Charlie. "It looked like a man."
"Right, yes, sir, a plain everyday man, who wouldn't pull the wings off even so much as a fly, Charlie, a fly! The least the Lonely One would do if he was the Lonely One is look like the Lonely One, right? Well, he looked like the candy butcher down front the Elite Theater nights."
"What you think he was, a tramp coming through town, got in what he thought was an empty house, and got killed by Miss Nebbs?"
"Sure!"
"Hold on, though. None of us know what the Lonely One should look like. There's no pictures. Only people ever saw him wound up dead."
"You know and Doug knows and I know what he looks like. He's got to be tall, don't he?"
"Sure ..."
"And he's got to be pale, don't he?"
"Pale, that's right."
"And skinny like a skeleton and have long dark hair, don't he?"
"That's what I always said."
"And big eyes bulging out, green eyes like a cat?"
"That's him to the t."
"Well, then." Tom snorted. "You saw that poor guy they lugged out of the Nebbs's place a couple hours ago. What was he?"
"Little and red-faced and kind of fat and not much hair and what there was was sandy. Tom, you hit on it! Come on! Call the guys! You go tell them like you told me! The Lonely One ain't dead. He'll still be out lurkin' around tonight."
"Yeah," said Tom, and stopped, suddenly thoughtful.
"Tom, you're a pal, you got a real brain. None of us would've saved the day this way. The summer was sure going bad up to this very minute. You got your thumb in the dike just in time. August won't be a total loss. Hey, kids!"
And Charlie was off, waving his arms, yelling.
Tom stood on the sidewalk in front of Lavinia Nebbs's house, his face pale.
"My gosh!" he whispered. "What've I gone and done now!"
He turned to Douglas.
"I say, Doug, what've I gone and done now?"
Douglas was staring at the house. His lips moved.
"I was there, last night, in the ravine. I saw Elizabeth Ramsell. I came by here last night on the way home. I saw the lemonade glass there on the rail. Just last night it was. I could drink that, I thought ... I could drink that.... "
She was a woman with a broom or a dustpan or a washrag or a mixing spoon in her hand. You saw her cutting piecrust in the morning, humming to it, or you saw her setting out the baked pies at noon or taking them in, cool, at dusk. She rang porcelain cups like a Swiss bell ringer, to their place. She glided through the halls as steadily as a vacuum machine, seeking, finding, and setting to rights. She made mirrors of every window, to catch the sun. She strolled but twice through any garden, trowel in hand, and the flowers raised their quivering fires upon the warm air in her wake. She slept quietly and turned no more than three times in a night, as relaxed as a white glove to which, at dawn, a brisk hand will return. Waking, she touched people like pictures, to set their frames straight.
But, now ...?