She had taken to wondering lately, during these swift-counted years, what had been done with all those wasted summer days; how could she have spent them so wantonly? I am foolish, she told herself early every summer, I am very foolish; I am grown up now and know the values of things. Nothing is ever really wasted, she believed sensibly, even one's childhood, and then each year, one summer morning, the warm wind would come down the city street where she walked and she would be touched with the little cold thought: I have let more time go by.

The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washer would amaze you.

I came to believe that being a private detective was the work I was meant to do.

I would have to find something else to bury here and I wished it could be Charles.

It was one of those winter days that suddenly dream of spring, when the sky is blue and soft and clear, and the wind has dropped its voice and whispers instead of screaming, and the sun is out and the trees look surprised, and over everything there is the faintest, palest tint of green.

I'm going to put death in all their food and watch them die.

Poor strangers, they have so much to be afraid of.