I was out taking a stroll in the park, something I don't have time for when I have work, and it was a nice day. The sun was out, a breeze was blowing, I saw daffodils and grape hyacinths, birds defended their territories, and a nice-looking young woman was coming along the path, scanning the ground, looking to right and left and looking worried too. She wasn't watching where she was going, and I had to step out of her way to avoid being run down.

"Excuse me sir," she said, looking up in surprise, "I didn't see you."

"It is nothing," I said, "what have you lost?"

"My pocket," she said, "and I know it was somewhere here in the park."

Her name was Lucy Locket, and it was a foregone conclusion that I would help her. I couldn't think of a tactful way to ask her to hire me, so I did it pro bono. After about a half an hour, I saw some telltale scuff marks in the dirt.

"You dropped it here," I said. "Someone else found it."

"Why would anybody take it," she wailed, "there was nothing in it, just the ribbon round it!"

"Why carry an empty pocket?" Suddenly I'd found something more interesting than her pretty face. My question seemed to make her nervous.

"Well, I was supposed to meet a friend of mine. Besides, I always carry it." She looked up and down the pathway. "I need to go," she said, edging away from me. "It's getting so late..." She hurried away, and I was all set to find out where she went when I heard a scream closely followed by a shot. This was starting to sound like a business before pleasure day.

I ran through the woods, and it wasn't far, but when I arrived all I saw was something in a white dress lying by the path. I took a good look around before emerging from the wood.

Her name, I later learned, had been Kitty Fisher. Lying by her hand was a small pocket. It was empty. It didn't seem likely, though, that it had been empty when she got shot.

I scouted around, but I didn't find the footprints of whoever shot her. I am just not that good at track analysis. I did find a young fellow named Simon who had heard the shot, but he seemed a little simple. He could barely stop eating his pie long enough to answer “no” to all my questions. Finally, I gave up in disgust. I would do better snooping around the city. A couple of days later I had some interesting facts about Kitty Fisher and Lucy Locket. It seems that Ms. Locket and Kitty Fisher's husband might have been more than just friends. Perhaps Ms. Locket, an avid amateur photographer, had had some interesting photographs in her pocket. They might have been photographs that Mr. Fisher would enjoy looking at but that his wife might find displeasing. All of this was wild speculation until I found the photographs.

Jack Horner's thumb! I had only seen pictures like that in those little magazines that come in brown wrappers. Not even the slightly more classy ones behind the pieces of wood at the checkout in seedy drugstores. Lucy Locket had done things that... well, let's say she had been letting Kitty Fisher's husband raise the flag in territory that for many people remains unexplored their whole lives, and now Kitty Fisher was dead. Something smelled foul here, and it wasn't Nancy Dawson's pig pen.

I paid a visit to the Fisher manse. At night. It was a few evenings after the wake and Mr. Fisher was home alone. When he left about 10 p.m. I had a good guess about where he was going and how long he would be gone, so I let myself in. It was not hard to find the pictures. I was sure his fingerprints would be all over them. And then it hit me: I was an idiot, and I was in the wrong place. I should be at Lucious Lucy’s house, listening to their pillow talk. One of them might say something incriminating. And, it might not be too late.

I got there as quickly as I could, parking around the corner from Locket's brownstone. She lived on one of those blocks where all the houses are brightly colored. Hers was teal, and it looked pretty nice, though the flower beds, well laid out, weren't visible at night. Alma, my fiancée, would like the place. A room on the third-floor was lit by a low-wattage bulb; the rest of the place was dark. I sidled through the alley to the back, hoping that neither she nor the neighbors had a dog and that her drainpipe was stout. I could smell freshly turned earth, heard a cat meow -- maybe there was no dog. When I reached the back wall I quickly laid my hand on the drain pipe. It was an old heavy steel monster; luck was with me tonight. I'm not as quick as I used to be, anyone who's read my books knows that, but I made it up to the third-floor before Fisher could get his hands across her state lines. That's just a figure of speech; and as far as I knew he had been at the doors to the Capitol before I even arrived. I levered myself off the roof, finding the weathered stone sill with my feet. I didn't hear anything. I risked a quick peek.

"Blast!" I whispered. I saw a neatly made bed; they had not gotten as far as the bedroom. I knew they were here; both of their cars had been in plain sight out front. The window was unlocked.

Halfway down the stairs I heard whispering and giggling. They were in the darkened living room on a big overstuffed couch in front of the fire. They weren't going anywhere and they weren't looking around, so it was child's play to get to a hiding place that was comfortably close. Most pillow talk is inane and I heard plenty of that in the next hour or so, but then I heard something else.

"I'm glad I got those photos back, love. I'm going to frame them and hang them up in my den."

"You are not! I'm not going to have your sleazy friends looking up you know where. Besides, people might think of... her." I pictured a delicate shudder during that pause.

"I don't," he replied, "not once since I plugged her." I stopped the recorder.

"What was that?!" I held my breath.

"You mean this?" he inquired. She giggled.

I waited a few more minutes to make sure they were occupied and then took my leave.

With what I had, the two of them were going to the big house. I wondered about Kitty Fisher though. Who she had been, wanted to be, whether she had been happy. Maybe there was room for a story in that if I only knew enough to write it. People were no damn good. I looked up at the moon grinning cheesily above Lucy Locket's postage-stamp yard. If I liked cheese a little more, or Alma a little less, I might just try to hitch a ride on the next cow going that way. Sometimes this job gets to me, and this time I wasn't even getting paid. It was time to go home.