4

Holle's housekeeper admitted Garreth with obvious reluctance. "This can't be an official visit, or are these undercover officers?" She eyed the two women.

He gave her a thin smile. "Call it semi-official. Mrs. Doyle and Mrs. Takananda are assisting me with a private line of investigation into Mr. Holle's death. May I see the top floor again?"

The housekeeper frowned. "Why?"

"To check the storerooms for forcible entry. It appears now that a human, not Irina, killed Mr. Holle, and he, or she, had to come in somwhere."

The housekeeper's tight smile said: I told you Miss Rudenko couldn't have done it.

She led the way up to the attic. Garreth kept track of Grandma Doyle behind him, but he quickly saw worrying about her was wasted effort. The stairs had Lien and the housekeeper breathing harder than they did his grandmother.

In the attic the housekeeper unlocked the padlocked bolts on the storerooms. Nothing had been disturbed in the first. It lay silent, untouched . . . smelling of dust and sea air. The latch handle at one side of the window ran parallel to the sash in the locked position and all of the window's six panes proved to be firmly in place. To Garreth's relief, neither was there enough dust on the floor to show footprints from his previous visit.

From the doorway of the second storeroom, it looked as he remembered, too. Except, he realized a moment later, that in the window the pane by the latch seemed slightly smaller than its companions. Moving over for a closer look, he saw why. Black electrician's tape lapped the edges of the pane on the outside. Using his pen, he pushed on the middle of the glass. It started to give.

The housekeeper's eyes widened.

"It's been cut," Garreth said, "then taped back in place so a casual glance wouldn't spot the damage." A faint circle on the glass showed where a suction device had been attached, first to pull the cut pane loose in one unbroken piece and then to hold it while it was taped back.

"You think Mr. Holle's killer did it?" The housekeeper frowned. "But the door—"

A quick examination of the hinges found what he expected . . . scratches at the top where a screwdriver had been worked in to pry up the hinge pin. He pointed them out to the women.

"What do we do now?" the housekeeper asked.

"Pray we find this devil," Grandma Doyle said. She stared at the window, eyes focused on something invisible. "If we don't catch him tomorrow, someone else will die."