Only the next of kin. The doctor smoked his pipe thoughtfully. More importantly, she had her wits. She was tempted to touch him in the car as they drove to the empty house, but she refrained for fear of causing a car accident. Gone were the old days where an old maid banged on an upright piano above a roaring crowd, this sound was loud enough to be heard outside the building, she thought to herself as her eardrums throbbed. There’s the internal factor as well as the external. But he has since acquitted you of any share in it. “We settled long ago—we’re hard stuff.