King of Murder by Betsy Byars

out carousing. You lead the way up the stairs.”
    â€œThe stairs are steep. Be careful.”
    Herculeah wasn’t as afraid with Gilda on her side. That woman was very strong. She had seen that in Tai Chi class.
    The door at the head of the stairs was as Herculeah had left it. She slipped through and stepped over the fallen curtain. Gilda followed.
    â€œNow, where’s the knife? Where’s the knife?” Gilda said.
    â€œOn the middle table.”
    They walked to the table, and Gilda froze.
    â€œThat is the knife, isn’t it?” Herculeah asked.
    â€œIt’s the knife.”
    She looked closely at Gilda. Gilda was very pale. It was as if all the blood had drained from her head.
    â€œAre you all right? You look like you’re going to faint. Don’t faint, because I could never get you and the knife back down those stairs.”
    Gilda didn’t answer.
    â€œWe shouldn’t have come. It’s too much for you to see the actual knife—”
    As if in a trance, Gilda stretched out her hand toward the knife.
    â€œDon’t pick it up,” Herculeah said.
    But Gilda paid no attention to Herculeah’s warning. Her hand hovered over the knife.
    Herculeah said, “No! No! You’ll mess up the fingerprints. You’ll ruin everything.”
    â€œDon’t worry about that, Herculeah.”
    Herculeah glanced around the tabletops, looking for something. She said, “We need to get something firm—this manuscript cover ought to do it. I’ll slide this under the knife and the scarf. We won’t even fold the scarf over the knife. We don’t want to do anything that would erase Mathias King’s print.”
    â€œYou don’t have to worry about his prints.” “But that’s the whole reason we’re here—to get Mathias King’s fingerprints on the knife.”
    â€œYou won’t find Mathias King’s prints on the knife.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause the prints on the handle of the knife are not his.”
    â€œThen whose?”
    Gilda turned and looked at Herculeah. Her face was still pale, but in the vague light that filtered through the open doorway, her eyes burned with the intensity Herculeah had last seen in the library of the murder house.
    It was as if a mask had slipped from her face, and Herculeah’s blood froze at what was revealed.
    â€œThe fingerprints on the knife,” she said, “are mine.”

26
    THE HEARSE
    â€œCould you tell me what a hearse is doing in front of the Jones’s house?”
    â€œA hearse?”
    Meat went to the window. You could count on this happening. You stood at the window staring at nothing for an hour, then you went to the refrigerator for ten or fifteen minutes and a hearse drove up.
    â€œIt was here the other day, too,” Meat’s mother said as he joined her at the window. “A man got out—a very suspicious-looking man, I might add. He was all in black.”
    â€œMathias King,” Meat whispered.
    â€œHe went up the steps, dropped something in the mail slot, and left.”
    â€œHas he gotten out of the hearse today?”
    â€œHe went up the steps, rang the bell, got no answer, and got back in the hearse. He’s still there.”
    Now Meat could see Mathias King’s profile in the front seat of the hearse. He was staring straight ahead.
    â€œI don’t like it,” Meat’s mother said. “It gives the street a bad name. It’s as if the man’s waiting for someone to die.”
    â€œI’ll find out what’s going on,” Meat said.
    â€œI’ll go with you.”
    â€œI’ll do this myself.”
    He spoke so manfully that his mother nodded. Meat went out the door alone, crossed the street, and rapped on the window.
    Mathias King rolled down the window and stared up at Meat with his black eyes.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” Meat asked bluntly.
    â€œI’m waiting