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"I'm starving. Have you got anything to eat here?" Shelley asked when Jane came back from yelling at the kids. "Preferably something salty and crunchy with the highest fat content possible?"

"Crackers and cheese?"

"Doesn't sound greasy enough, but it would do." Shelley slumped on a kitchen chair while Jane got out snacks. "How about some hot chocolate, just to run the calorie count up?" Jane asked.

"Sounds wonderful."

While Jane worked, Shelley said, "I don't believe in cholesterol. I think within ten years they'll change their trendy little medical minds and say they were wrong all along and human beings really need as many saturated fats as they can knock back. They're already changing their minds about eggs."

"Interesting theory."

"Jane, consider this: human beings are carnivores. The species in the jungle eating other creatures, finding eggs to steal, maybe eating the occasional plant, just for variety or out of desperation. I think red meat and eggs are the stuff of which humans are made."

Jane set down a tray and two cups of steaming cocoa. She'd even put little marshmallows in the cups. "In that case, I'll be ready with my cabinets full of previously forbidden foods. Shelley, to get back to the subject at hand -- this morning Mel was asking me about the practical jokes and he did something interesting that we ought to try."

"What's that?"

"He made a list of the jokes and then went through it over and over, looking at them each time in a different way. Like, were they harmful? Who was the victim? Could they have a meaning? Did they require advance preparation?"

"Uh-huh. And did it lead him to any conclusion?"

"Not that I know of. Not then. But it's an interesting way of looking at things. So, let's do the same thing with the murder. We need to think about this in an organized, logical way."

"All right. Where do we start?" Shelley took an extremely unladylike bite of a cracker she'd slathered with a great deal of cheese.

"Well, how about this-if we agree that Lila was killed because she was blackmailing sorneone -- "

"Do we know that?"

Jane thought for a minute. "No, actually we don't know it. It just seems extremely likely."

"Likely isn't certain. Anybody might have wanted to kill her for any number of reasons, starting with the fact that she was an all-round obnoxious bitch," Shelley said.

"Yes, but there are a lot of those in the world and most of them are still alive and kicking."

"Lead on, Sherlock." Shelley took a careful sip of her cocoa and closed her eyes appreciatively for a moment. "You have a great skill with premixed foodstuffs, Jane."

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