April 29

Henri woke feeling queasy and strangely tense. Fractured images of his strange nightmare kept nagging at his attention, but not making themselves clear. He shaved carefully with shaky hands, checked and on Pierre. He put some fresh water and alfalfa in the cage and then went back inside.

Henri dressed carefully, charcoal suit suitable for a hospital visit, primrose tie and orchid colored shirt, peach pocket square. He tucked pearl grey kid gloves in his pocket. The ritual of dressing calmed him as always. He smoothed his hair back with lilac-scented pomade and went downstairs to await the others.

April 25

Henri set the phone in its cradle. Were all police like Delaney or was he special somehow, a perfect blend of man and bulldog? He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Then he went over to the shirt-front box he'd set on the floor. Pierre looked well enough in his shredded paper. Henri refreshed his dish of water and gave him some more leaves of lettuce and a tomato. He didn't know if rabbits ate tomatoes, but he was low on fresh vegetables at the moment.

First he'd phone his usual handyman to have the fellow come round and build a hutch on the balcony, then he'd go shopping for something suitable for breakfast for both him and Pierre. An extra dollar a week should keep the cleaning lady from getting too upset over cleaning the cage. After breakfast he could go down and open the shop.

He had three appointments that afternoon, pert little Mary R., elegant Daphne S. and old, fat, but rich Hannah W. As always he chatted with them easily, dressed them beautifully, and entertained them entirely. However this time he also probed delicately for information. He wasn't sure if the news was public about M. Whitcombe's death, so he couldn't start conversation sighing about that tragedy and he refused to use Millie's death similarly. That left asking his ladies about parties and other functions they'd attended and getting to M. Whitcombe (and hopefully her swami) that way.

That evening, after looking over his new hutch and--satisfied--settling Pierre into it, Henri went to the library. He was most interested in locating any of the books or essays mentioned in the ashen scraps and trying to find out what the referred to 'planks' might be. He also wanted to look at some history of clothing books and see if anything similar in shape and form to the skin hat had been worn in the past.