Amy sticks to her guns and insists she saw Quentin and adds, But he climbed into the house through a window--why would Quentin do that? Then I heard the same man at my bedroom door (though since he didn’t open it I don’t know how she knew it was him). “Alexis” remarks, When I was a child, I had an overactive imagination too.
At Stokes’s cottage, Barnabas and Will are now in the room with the body. Barnabas has the grace to say, I feel a strange kind of humility in daring to try this without Julia’s help.
Apparently, all that's needed is for Barn and Will just to be in the room with the body for Angelique to feel faint.
Stokes keeps those old marble-covered notebooks, but they contain no useful information.
Angelique finally realizes what's wrong and dashes out of Collinwood. Brave Amy decides to explore the dusty West Wing all by herself.
Angelique is too late--Barn and Will have removed the body.
Barnabas, Julia, and Will are in the secret room behind the bookcase at Loomis House, so it isn’t the basement for the body after all. You have no idea what you’ve started, Julia scolds Barnabas. Will says Barnabas has explained it all to him, but Julia asks to speak to Barnabas alone. I know you’re against this, Barnabas tells her, but it’s done now. No, Julia says, it’s just beginning. Julia is in the middle of telling Barnabas what a big mistake he’s made when, as if to illustrate her point, Angelique arrives looking for him. Our favorite couple listen from inside the secret room as Will, who’s in the drawing room, tells Angelique that Barnabas isn’t home and that he (Will) doesn’t know when he (Barnabas) will be back. Will flounders for an excuse, finally hypothesizing that Barnabas must have a girl tucked away somewhere (not too much of a stretch). That is a girl I’d like to meet, Angelique says, and Will agrees. He has a very hard time getting her to leave.
In the secret room, Barnabas and Julia hear the front door close. Barnabas remarks, I know, Julia--you want to say, I told you so, and you’ll be right. No, Barnabas, she answers sadly, I don’t want to say it at all. Will knocks on the bookcase to tell them that Angelique is gone but warns them not to come out yet, since she may be back. We may as well start to work, Julia says, and Barnabas looks at her in surprise. I changed my mind, she says simply. You know what has to be done here, and because of the danger now..., Barnabas starts, and Julia nods in reply. Gratefully he presses her hand between his.
Although in our time band the West Wing of Collinwood is inhabited, in parallel time it’s deserted and empty. (In our time band it’s the East Wing that’s deserted, but that’s where Angelique’s room is in parallel time.) As she explores the West Wing’s dusty, cobwebbed corridors, Amy tells herself, I’m sure I won’t find anything. Then, a little excited at her own daring, she says, Daniel won’t believe I did this--he thinks I’m always scared. She has entered one of the many rooms when she suddenly hears the door to the West Wing open and close. Footsteps approach her, and she hurries out of the room to hide behind a screen next to the door. Someone opens the door and enters the room. Amy emerges from behind her screen.
Ange complains to "Hoffman" about her frequent unavailability. Julia pleads "other concerns." Ange orders her to go to the Blue Whale and get Tim, adding, Meanwhile, I’ll think very hard about how Barnabas could have found out about that girl. Julia says maybe he didn’t, but Angelique tells her, I’m not so naive as you are--and you’re far more trusting than you ever were before.
Which way? Amy thinks to herself as she walks down the hallway toward the Tower Room. (On a commode in the hall is the same pathetic stuffed boar that frightened our Carolyn in the Todds’ antique shop.) Sure enough, she sees light spilling out from under the door. Entering the room, she finds a dust-free cot (made up with the Famous Peripatetic Brown Afghan, which come to think of it, Yaeger borrowed for Maggie), but what’s more interesting to Amy and us is the good old Apollo Belvedere miniature, complete with ascot.
At Loomis House, Barnabas tells Will, We must prove to Quentin that “Alexis” is Angelique by showing him the body in that room. He orders Will, I want you to find Quentin--tonight. Angelique is helping him, so he must be somewhere on the grounds or in the house.
Julia arrives at the Stokes cottage alone and does nothing to dispel Angelique’s assumption that her father was too drunk to be of any help. Angelique is convinced that Barnabas has the body. Why do you suspect Barnabas rather than someone else? Julia asks. Angelique replies, He is my enemy. Surely he knows that if he kills the girl, I will die. Why hasn’t he done it already? She gives Julia more orders, then observes again that “Hoffman” seems to be more trusting than she used to be.
Amy shows her find to “Uncle Will,” who conveniently happens to be in the drawing room at Collinwood, and tells him where she got it. (“Uncle” must be simply a courtesy title, since Will is related to the Collinses only by marriage.) To Amy’s surprise, Will says, I believe you. I’ll take care of everything.
Julia relates what she has learned to Barnabas. You shouldn’t have come back to the Old House, he tells her in alarm. She says Angelique went to her room. She might have been pretending and followed you, Barnabas frets. Julia says, I had to warn you that Angelique is absolutely certain you have the girl. She will stop at nothing until she destroys you! We must both be careful, they agree.
I must be careful, Will tells himself as he walks down the hall. Maggie says he’s mad. I hope he’ll realize I’m on his side, that I want to help him--unless Angelique has somehow changed him. Arriving at the Tower Room, A.B. in hand, he also finds a truly hideous necktie that almost certainly might be Quentin’s. Then he too hears footsteps, but it’s too late to leave the room or hide. As the door opens, he looks surprised....
