At seven o’clock, just as I was taking a pan of fresh raspberry muffins out of the oven, the Summiteers began to arrive. First on the scene was Hugh Weaver. He’d barely crossed the threshold when we saw John drive up.

I settled the two partners at the kitchen table with mugs of fresh coffee and a basket of muffins when the doorbell rang. It had to be the last of the Sumitteers.

As soon as I opened the front door, the delightful aroma of fresh bagels hit me. Nicholas shifted the big Junior’s bag he carried to one side and leaned down to give me a quick kiss on the tip of my nose.

“I made it a point to come last,” he said. “No need to raise O’Hara’s Irish by having him think I’d spent the night here.”

“Will you stop this nonsense about John? You and I have nothing to hide. I’ve told you at least a dozen times that John is my friend, and only my friend.”

“I believe you,” Nicholas said. “But I’m sure that if he were free he’d marry you in one minute flat.”

“Not without my permission,” I said. “I love John, in the same way I love Eileen and Shannon and the Marshalls.”

“You didn’t mention me,” Nicholas said.

“No, I didn’t.”

I took the Junior’s bag from him and started toward the kitchen.

The detectives and the reporter exchanged polite greetings. I unpacked the bagels, arranged the goodies on a platter, and set it in the middle of the table.

Surveying the spread, John nodded at Nicholas. “Thanks.”

“We’ve got four kinds of bagels: onion, garlic, cheese, and pumpernickel,” I told John and Weaver. “And at least a pound of lox and a tub of cream cheese.”

Weaver smacked his lips. “What are the rest of you going to eat?” He took two halves of a garlic bagel, slathered cream cheese on the surfaces, topped them off with slices of lox, and said to Nicholas, “I’m almost getting to like you.”

“Great love stories have started on a less promising note than that,” Nicholas said wryly.

The bagel stopped an inch away from Weaver’s mouth. “Hey! What are you implying?”

“It was a joke,” John said. “Chew.”

When breakfast was consumed, I refilled the men’s coffee mugs. No more for myself; I’d had enough caffeine. I’d been up since five to do my pet care chores and make the muffins.

John stood and started to clear the table. Nicholas was just behind him and began picking up dishes. Working in tandem, but silently, it took them less than two minutes to rinse the plates and stack them in the dishwasher.

Weaver watched them with an expression that was about as close to a good-humored smile as he got. “Who says you can’t get good help nowadays?”

When John and Nicholas came back to the table, I said, “Time to call this meeting to order.” I indicated the guest lists. “I’ve gone over all these names and the photos with Eileen. She told me she never met any of these people, and that the only ones she ever heard Ingram mention were Yvette Dupree and Eugene Long. According to Eileen, Ingram disliked the two of them intensely. She said Ingram called Long a vindictive drunk and said he was a crook who deserved to be in jail, but he wasn’t specific.”

I told them about Yvette coming to see me at the cooking school on Saturday.

“She said she thought a jealous woman killed Ingram, and she’s worried that Eugene Long’s daughter, Tina, might be in danger because Ingram had asked Tina to marry him and she’d accepted.” I left out the part about Yvette thinking that the jealous woman was Eileen.

“Yvette acted as though she’s very close to Tina,” I said, “but she dropped that subject the moment I told her about the attempt on Roland Gray’s life.”

“You shouldn’ta done that,” Weaver said, shaking his head.

“The chief’s managed to keep a lid on it,” John said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But her immediate reaction was interesting. All she asked me was if Roland was alone. I told her that I’d been with him, and then she rushed off. I didn’t tell her what hospital he was in, but later that afternoon I saw her leaving St. Clare’s. She must have found out where Roland was and went to see him. She left in a taxi.”

I pushed the piece of paper from Liddy’s notepad toward Weaver. “This is the number of the cab that picked her up at three thirty yesterday afternoon. I’m sure you can find out where the driver took her.”

John said, “If Hatch finds out you talked to Gray before he-”

“I didn’t talk to him. I admit that’s what I’d intended to do, but I found out Roland left the hospital, accompanied by two men. From their descriptions, one of them sounded like Roland’s assistant, Will Parker. The other was a big man who was dressed like a chauffeur.”

I handed the guest lists to John and to Weaver.

Indicating the pages, Nicholas said, “That’s not everyone who attended. Three people bought tickets at the door that night. They paid by check.”

Nicholas removed a slip of paper from his jacket pocket and placed it between the two detectives. “The first two people on that list are legitimate. That third name, George Green, is a phony. The check was bogus. I don’t mean it was rubber. What I’m saying is that the account doesn’t exist. Somebody designed and printed the check. The ticket people were so busy that none of them remembers what the guy looked like.”

“At least we know the mystery person was a man,” I said.

“But we don’t know whether he just wanted to get in free, or if he went there to kill Ingram,” Weaver said.

“He didn’t just forge someone’s name on a check,” I said. “He went to all the trouble of creating a fake personal check and account number, which suggests to me that he was there for something more important than watching celebrities cook.”

John nodded. “I agree with Della. If we find that man, we’ll have our killer.”

“No description, and by now there hasta be dozens of prints on that check,” Weaver said. “Finding him, we got about a snowball’s chance in a haystack.”

I refused to be discouraged. “We know more than we did the night Ingram was murdered.” I looked at John and Weaver. “What have the police found out?”

“Not much,” John said. “Apparently, there’s no connection between that actor who did the juggling-Wolf Wheeler- and Ingram. Wheeler’s pretty well-known as a compulsive performer whenever he can corral an audience.”

“He’s got a rep for jumping up on the stage in Vegas during other people’s acts,” Weaver said. “Not all of them like it. I got the feeling that some of ’em wouldn’t be surprised if it had been Wheeler who got offed instead of Ingram.”

“I’ve been doing background checks on the people who were in closest physical proximity to Ingram when he was stabbed,” Nicholas said. “One of the things I did was go back through the past eight years of Ingram’s Chronicle columns. He wrote two negative reviews of Yvette Dupree’s Global Gourmet books, and, up until a few months ago, he slammed the restaurants in Gene Long’s hotel. Then he suddenly did a one-eighty. Lately he started sucking up in print, giving glowing mentions to those same restaurants that he used to call ‘insults to the educated palate.’ In one piece he accused Long’s executive chef of ‘a criminal misuse of the gift of fire.’ ”

“Roland Gray and Ingram had a history,” I said. “I think that if I’d had a little more time I could have gotten him to tell me about it. Just before the bullet came through the window, Roland told me he was afraid of Ingram. He said he thought that Ingram was going to try to harm him.”

“That might be a reason for Gray to strike first,” John said, “except that somebody shot at Gray after Ingram was already dead and no more threat to anyone.”

“We’re going around in a circle,” Weaver said. He reached for the last muffin in the basket and took a large bite.

I pulled my notepad closer and turned to a fresh page. “Then let’s break out of that circle. Let’s list what we know about Ingram and his associations, both those on the premises the night he was killed, and others who might have hired someone to kill him.”