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"I insisted on placing the earrings and brooch in a plastic bag so that any residue of tissue clinging to them could be analyzed, and then I went up toto death

"It was maybe six o'clock when I sat down to supper with Aunt Queen Her rooolden yellow taffeta, and ere at the sainst the back s of the house at which she frequently took her meals

"We devoured one of her favorite dishes -- scra with her favorite chane

"She earing silver spike heels and a loose-fitting silk-and-lace dress She had a cameo at her throat, centered perfectly on her collar -- Jass and the cameo brooch from the island with us

"The brooch was 'Rebecca at the Well,' the earrings were tiny heads, as is usually the case with small cameos

"I began by telling her all about Rebecca's trunk in the attic, and then Rebecca's ghost and what had happened, and then I went over again everything that was on the island and how perfectly strange it was out there, and that there was clear evidence of murder on the second floor of the house

" 'All right,' she said 'You've heard inia Lee died and left him a er he was considered a madman in these parts ¡¯

"I nodded for her to go on I also took no

te that Goblin was right behind her, so me with a kind of abstracted expression on his face He was also leaning against the wall kind of casually, and so about that struck a bad note with e of comfort, but my mind was really not on Goblin but on Rebecca and Aunt Queen

"Aunt Queen went on with her tale

" 'But what you don't know,' she said, 'is that Manfred brought woovernesses for Willia ot froht district in New Orleans -- who as it suited his purposes, and then from the picture they were abruptly erased ¡¯

" 'God, you're telling me he killed more than one of them?' I asked

" 'I don't know that he did any such thing,' said Aunt Queen She went on 'It's your story about this island that has put it in my mind that perhaps he did murder them But no one knehat becaet rid of a poor Irish girl in those days You simply dropped her down in the middle of New Orleans What more need be done?¡¯

" 'But Rebecca, did you hear tell of Rebecca?¡¯

" 'Yes, indeed, I did,' said Aunt Queen 'You know I did I heard plenty tell of her And I'o on in irls were kind to little William and Camille, but in the main they didn't bother with them one way or another, and so they don't come down to us with any nah that would have been a significant clue ¡¯