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"Couldn’t the doctor have run a test--"

"We were in a first-class bordello, Mr Rhinehart, not a hospital" She chucked the white cat under the chin, and it playfully waved a paw at her "The doctor didn’t have the ti Besides, why should we have cared whether the boys were identical or not?"

Hilary said, "Katherine named one of them Bruno"

"Yes," Mrs Yancy said "I found that out when he started sending me checks after Katherine’s death"

"What did she call the other boy?"

"I haven’t the foggiest By the tiiven names to either of them yet"

"But weren’t their names on their birth certificates?" Tony asked

"There weren’t any certificates," Mrs Yancy said

"How could that be?"

"The births weren’t recorded"

"But the law--"

"Katherine insisted that the births not be recorded She was paying good ot it"

"And the doctor went along with this?" Tony asked

"He got a thousand bucks for delivering the twins and for keeping his mouth shut," the old woman said "A thousand orth several times more in those days than it is now He ell paid for bending a few rules"

"Were both of the babies healthy?" Joshua asked

"They were thin," Mrs Yancy said "Scrawny as hell Two pathetic little things Probably because Katherine had been on a diet for irdles But they could cry just as good and loud as any other babies And there wasn’t a thing wrong with their appetites They see did Katherine stay at your place?" Hilary asked

"Alth back after such a hard delivery And the babies needed time to put a little flesh on their bones"

"When she left, did she take both children with her?"

"Of course I wasn’t running a nursery I was glad to see her leave"

"Did you know that she was going to take only one of the twins to St Helena?" Hilary asked

"I understood that to be her intention Yes"

"Did she say what she was going to do with the other boy?" Joshua asked, taking over the questioning from Hilary

"I believe she intended to put it up for adoption," Mrs Yancy said

"You believe?" Joshua asked exasperatedly "Weren’t you even the least bit concerned about what ht happen to those two helpless babies in the hands of a woman as obviously mentally unbalanced?"

"She had recovered"

"Baloney"

"I tell you, if you’d ht she had any problems"

"But for God’s sake, underneath that facade--"

"She was their mother," Mrs Yancy said primly "She wouldn’t have done them any harm"

"You couldn’t have been sure of that," Joshua said

"I certainly was sure of it," Mrs Yancy declared "I’ve always had the highest respect for motherhood and a ain, Joshua had to restrain hi for the bun of hair on top of her head

Tony said, "Katherine couldn’t have put the baby up for adoption Not without a birth certificate to prove that it was hers"

"Which leaves us with a number of unpleasant possibilities to consider," Joshua said

"Honestly, you people a her cat "You alant to believe the worst I’ve never seen three bigger pessiht have left the little boy on a doorstep? She probably abandoned hie or ht away and given proper care I i couple, raised in an excellent hoood education, all sorts of advantages"

In the attic, waiting for nightfall, bored, nervous, lonely, apprehensive, sometimes stuporous, more often frenetic, Bruno Frye spentto his dead self He hoped to soothe his roiling ain a sense of purpose, but hethose lines He decided that he would be calmer, happier, and less lonely if he could at least look into his other self’s eyes, like in the old days, when they had often sat and stared longingly into each other for an hour orsoone, just one together He recalled that moment in Sally’s bathroom, only yesterday, when he had stopped in front of a mirror and hadinto eyes that he had thought were the eyes of his other self, he had felt wonderful, blissful, at peace Now he desperately wanted to recapture that state of mind And how much better to look into the real eyes of his other self, even if they were flat and sightless now But himself lay on the bed, eyes firmly closed Bruno touched the eyes of the other Bruno, the dead one, and they were cold orbs; the lids would not lift under his gently prodding fingertips He explored the curves of those shuttered eyes, and he felt hidden sutures at the corners, tiny knots of thread holding the lids down Excited by the prospect of seeing the other’s eyes again, Bruno got up and hurried downstairs, looking for razor blades and delicate cuticle scissors and needles and a crocheting hook and other ht be of use in the reopening of the other Bruno’s eyes