“I’m sure she was,” I said. “Who’s this ominous ‘he’ you keep mentioning?”

Caron and Inez widened their eyes at each other. “Mr. Weiss,” they whispered in awed sibilance.

“Who is Mr. Weiss?” My patience was beginning to evaporate. I had a perfectly wonderful mystery novel in the bedroom. The water in the teapot was still hot. I could put myself to bed and bliss.

Caron gulped at my irreverence. “Mr. Weiss is the principal of Farberville High School, Mother.”

“Oh,” I said wisely, then proceeded to reiterate the bare outlines of their story, which took no time at all. Accounts short, teacher dismissed, newspaper production halted. Career in journalism thwarted in its infancy. “There’s not one thing I can do about any of this, girls. I’m not a CPA, and I doubt my opinion will affect Mr. Weiss’s decisions. If Miss Parchester would like a discount on paperback romances while she does a prison term, I could-”

“Mother!”

“Mrs. Malloy!”

The squeaks were almost worse than the jackhammer. “Let’s be reasonable,” I continued. “This is a high school problem. Surely the proper authorities can resolve this, and if Miss Parchester is as innocent as you say, then she will be back shortly, as will the newspaper and all its columns.”

“You have to help,” Caron said. “You have to investigate and find out who really took the money. Mr. Weiss won’t do anything; he thinks Miss Parchester is a thief. By the time he hires a new teacher, Rosie will be over her mono and I won’t get to write the Miss Demeanor column until I’m a senior. That’ll be years from now. Eons.”

“I am a bookseller, not a private eye. I have no idea how to find bugs in the accounts, nor am I in a position to find out who might be behind the heinous crime. I’m sorry about the column, but there is no way I can help Miss Parchester, Miss Demeanor, or the Falcon Crier.”

Caron had recovered nicely from her semi-hysterical state. Slyly smiling, she said, “I told Miss Dort that you would substitute for Miss Parchester. You can snoop around between classes.”

I will not elaborate on my unseemly reaction to this astounding announcement. Inez was sent home (she left briskly and gratefully), and Caron and I verbally explored the ramifications of volunteering others without prior permission, among other things. My voice might have peaked upon occasion, but for the most part I kept my temper under admirable restraint. Caron ran through her repertoire of post-pubescent poses, including contrite child (ha!), defender of truth, unjustly accused victim, etc.

I had reached a new plateau of rhetorical sarcasm when the telephone rang. Stabbing my finger at Caron to keep her in place, I grabbed the receiver. “What?”

“Mrs. Malloy?” quavered an unfamiliar voice. “This is Emily Parchester. I was wondering-well, hoping-or should I say, praying-that you might be able to visit me for a cup of tea this afternoon? I realize you must be terribly busy, and I would never dream of imposing on a stranger, but I really have nowhere else to turn.”

I glared at Caron as I struggled for decorum. “Miss Parchester-from the high school?”

“Formerly of the high school,” she said with quiet dignity. A hiccup rather destroyed the effect. “Would you be so kind as to come to my house, Miss Malloy? I must talk to you.

I made a noise that she interpreted as agreement. After she had given me her address and a time, she bleated out a lengthy promise of gratitude and finally hung up. It took me several minutes to uncurl my fingers in order to replace the receiver-and remind myself of the legal repercussions of child abuse.

“Miss Parchester has invited me to a tea party,” I told Caron when I could trust myself “She has some wild idea that I can salvage her reputation and restore her to her position at the high school. Wherever would she get such an idea?”

Caron shrugged modestly. “I told her how you had solved those murders, and convinced her that you would help her. She’s a poor old spinster, Mother, and she’s all alone in the world. No one at the high school cares about her. If she loses her job, she’ll just sit home by herself until she dies.” My daughter, the compassionate columnist.

“In that you face the same fate, you’d better clean up your room so that your body will be discovered at some point during decomposition. Then you may clean the bathroom, finish the dishes, and begin your homework. I’m going to a tea party.”

“I don’t have any homework.”

“Do it anyway.” I closed the door with more energy than necessary and went down the stairs. To tea. All I needed was a hat and white gloves. Or a mad hatter and a dormouse.

Miss Parchester lived in a white-shingled house in the oldest section of Farberville. At one time, the cream of society sipped iced tea on the wide verandas, and carriages rolled down the tree-lined streets on their way to the charity balls in vanished hotels.

The ancient elm trees were still there, but most of the houses had been subdivided into apartments for Farber students and transient waiters. Bustled ladies had been replaced with T-shirt clad students armed with frisbees and beer. Subcompacts filled the carriage houses.

My battered hatchback felt no shame. I mentally straightened my hat and pulled on gloves, then went up the brick sidewalk and stopped to read the names taped on the row of black metal mailboxes. Miss Parchester lived in I-A. Wonderful. As I hesitated, considering a brisk retreat and another discussion with Caron, a pigtailed college girl bounced through the door, sized me up with undue arrogance, and informed me that Miss Parchester lived in the first apartment on the left.

I managed an insincere nod of thanks and went inside to do my distasteful duty. Tea, sympathy, and firmness, I reminded myself in a determined voice. I was neither detective nor substitute teacher. I was a widow who needed to earn a living in order to support a treacherous, loquacious teenager until she could be tucked away in a college dormitory. Preferably at the University of Fairbanks, or Iceland Polytech.

Before my knuckles reached the door, it flew open. A tiny woman with thin white hair looked up at me as if I had just arrived in a chariot drawn by angels. She wore a black dress and a sensible, handmade cardigan. Her feet were covered by shabby pink slippers, a strange combination.

“Mrs. Malloy? How terribly kind of you to come so promptly.”

“Miss Parchester, I want to thank you for offering tea, but I want you to realize-“

“Yes, of course,” she said, “please come in. Caron-such a sweet child-has told me so much about you. Although she’s only a freshman, she shows surprising talent, don’t you think?”

She chattered in that vein as she put me on a brocade sofa, then shuffled down a dark hallway. I looked around curiously. The room was oddly shaped, and at last I deduced it had been divided to create another apartment. The ceiling was high, with an elaborate molding and elegant cornices. The windows, too, were high, but shades let in only a dull yellow light. The furniture would have given an antique dealer a stroke on the spot, if he could have seen it without the teetery piles of bleached newspapers, magazines, ancient composition books, and dust. It smelled of camphor-and dust.

Miss Parchester shuffled back in with a tray. Once I was supplied with tea and one of “mother’s sugar cookies,” she said, “I do so enjoy tea in the afternoon, Mrs. Malloy. The youth of today seem to prefer those vile carbonated drinks, but tea is so refreshing.”

So was scotch, but I didn’t mention it. “I’m afraid Caron has given you the wrong impression-”

“The tea service belonged to my great-grandmother,” she continued blithely, “and has been in the family for nearly a century. My mother used to serve tea to the Judge every afternoon on the veranda, even though he might have preferred a gentleman s drink.”