“Unfortunately” - Mac allowed himself an ironic smile - “I have a penchant for rejecting the obvious. Perhaps that reflects too many years of writing mystery stories and even more years of reading them, but it has served me well. Woollcott was altogether too convenient a killer. Additionally, I knew that he had been in my sight virtually from the moment we left this house last night until Jefferson and Lynda entered the President’s Dining Room. And I knew that he had been in the audience all through my talk this morning when Lynda was struck. Jefferson and Lynda were free to suspect that I was mistaken on both counts, but I knew that I was not.”

Lynda paused in the middle of unwrapping a stick of gum. “We figured it didn’t have to be the killer who hit me. It could have been another Sherlockian who wanted the Beeton’s.”

“And left without it?” Mac’s voice was rich with skepticism. “A thief who failed to find the book himself would have waited for Lynda to find it before he knocked her out. No, the killer assaulted Lynda and the killer left that book behind because the killer wanted it found. Why? To frame Woollcott Chalmers. And who could comfortably enter this house and do that? Eliminating myself and those in this room with no conceivable motive, I was left with an unpleasant but inescapable confirmation of a conclusion I had already reached: Renata Chalmers was that killer.”

Renata flinched. She was sitting up straight on the couch, about a foot from her husband. The old man stared at her, but she gave Mac her full attention. “Go on,” she said. “Play your game.”

“Hugh’s mysterious visitor in the deerstalker must have been someone he knew, for he chose to open the door,” Mac said. “Renata certainly qualifies on that score. And the cap - Woollcott’s, of course - would make a good disguise for a woman with long hair, à la Irene Adler dressing as a man in ‘A Scandal in Bohemia.’ You will recall that Renata was already wearing a suit with slacks yesterday.”

“Hold it, Mac,” Lynda interrupted. “You mentioned long hair. Renata may not have been with her husband at the time of the murder, but we know she was putting her hair into ringlets to go with her Victorian outfit for the evening. I saw her earlier in the day and I saw her later with her hair fixed up and I know from experience how long that work can take.”

Renata flashed her a look of gratitude. But Kate said, “Not if you just put on a wig with the ringlets already on it.” My sister sat forward in her chair. “Mac, is that why you asked me this morning whether Renata’s hair-’’

“Exactly. Now Jefferson, think back to your first visit to the guest suite this morning. Undoubtedly you looked around at the dressers before Renata stopped you. Did you see a curling iron? No? I thought not. How about a wig?”

I closed my eyes and tried to bring it all back. Yes, in my mental image there was a lump of hair sitting with the jewelry box and the makeup and the hair brush. But was it just the power of Mac’s suggestion that had put it there? Unsure, I shook my head. “Sorry, Mac, I can’t-”

“Yes,” Woollcott Chalmers said, looking at his wife. “Renata brought one of her hairpieces. I never thought...” He licked his lips and fell silent.

“But there wasn’t any hair when Jeff and I searched the room for the book,” Lynda said.

“Of course not,” Mac agreed. “Renata removed it after she knocked you unconscious. Perhaps she secreted it in that large handbag she carries. The question would be easily settled, Renata, if you would care to let us look inside.”

“No!” For a second her eyes were wild, like a cornered animal. “That suggestion is insulting.”

“I did not think you would like it.” Again Mac turned his attention to Lynda and me. “Renata undoubtedly knew that her flimsy alibi would fall apart if you realized that her elaborate Victorian coiffure was the work of a few moments. Hence her need to knock you out, Lynda, and spirit away the wig. However, her primary reason for being in the suite was to plant the Beeton’s in her husband’s drawer so that it would be there to incriminate him when you two looked for it.”

“This is all speculation,” Renata said in a firm voice. “You have no proof for any of it.”

“Perhaps not,” Mac conceded. “What would happen, however, if the police showed your photograph around the Winfield? Is there no one who would remember such a strikingly attractive woman in the hotel around the time of the murder? I suspect you kept the deerstalker in your handbag, not on your head, until you reached the proper floor. And then there is the matter of that cane, which I am quite certain will turn out to be the murder weapon. It was used to throw suspicion on Woollcott, but you had equal access to it, Renata. And Woollcott has an alibi for the murder, which you lack.”

The fight went out of Renata. She stared at the dried flower arrangement in front of the fireplace screen.

“Why?” her husband breathed. “Why, Renata?”

“And how come you had to come back when I was here?” Lynda asked. Unconsciously her right hand stole to the tender part at the back of her head. She winced.

Renata looked at her with a strangely graceful, almost regal movement in which she moved her head but not her body. “I am sorry about that, Lynda. I had intended to slip the book into Woollcott’s dresser this morning, after he and our hosts left for the symposium. But then your friend showed up.” Renata nodded at me. “I thought he was there to search for the book - and I was certain that he’d be back.”

“Nothing could have been better for your plans, of course,” Mac said.

“Of course,” Renata agreed. “It meant I wouldn’t have to somehow maneuver Kate into ‘discovering’ the book as I had planned. The trick was to plant the book in an easily uncovered hiding place before Jeff returned. When I saw him leave the lecture hall with Bob Nakamora, that was my opening. With him out of the way, I didn’t expect any company here. When you showed up, Lynda, that completely unnerved me. That’s why I hit you - not because I was afraid you’d see the wig. Taking the wig was an afterthought. I grabbed it and ran. I must have been running through the kitchen and out the back of the house about the time Jeff was coming in the front.”

“And from there we played right into your hands,” I said with a bitterness I could almost taste.

“Not entirely.” She was a cool one, seemingly unfazed by the collapse of her carefully contrived plans. “You were supposed to find the gun right away. I hid it from Woollcott yesterday when we came back to change our clothes because I knew I was going to use it on Hugh. And I kept it hidden today until Woollcott was out of the house.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What did you think happened to it, Chalmers? I’m sure you don’t just misplace unique objects like that.”

“Actually, he does,” Renata said coldly before he could answer. “His memory is failing along with several functions, except when it comes to his damned Sherlock Holmes. After he was out of the house, I put it where you should have seen it the first time.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Lynda murmured.

“But why?” Kate cried. “Why frame your husband? Why kill your lover?”

“Lover?” Renata repeated, unconsciously forming a fist with her right hand. Her icy coolness was slipping. “He didn’t love me. Neither of them did. I was a possession, a trinket, another collectible for the two of them to squabble over. That’s just what I heard them doing in the bar one night before an Anglo-Indian Club meeting. I decided that this was one battle of male egos they would both lose. I would make them pay. It was only a matter of waiting for the right moment. The moment came and I did it and I’m glad I did it and the only thing I’m sorry about is that Woollcott didn’t suffer enough.”

She sat back, exhausted, but without loosening her posture.