RANSVESTIA

"She always had a word for Betty Ewell," said Lana slowly. "They'd smile and exchange a few words whenever they met."

"Well, they were old friends," said Jeannette, slipping 'her' woolen dress about 'her' shoulders and picking up 'her' straw purse.

"Old friends?" asked Hamilton, turning to eye 'her' speculatively.

Even under 'her' powder and rouge, Jeannette flushed at the detective's close scrutiny. "Yes," she said. “At least, Darlene said they went to school together back home wherever that was."

"Detroit," said Lana. "Darlene came from Detroit."

"And what was Darlene's real name?" asked Hamilton.

Lana's thin eyebrows furrowed for a moment and then her pink, glossy lips parted in a smile. "Arthur," she said. "Arthur George Draper of Detroit."

Bob Ewell was in sports shirt and slacks when he opened the door to admit Hamilton and Calesi, Buchanan had been dispatched to start a check of Draper's background as well as to contact the medical examiner. Ewell had a thin, long-nosed face. His fashionably long hair was unruly and his shirt was wrinkled. His pale eyes were red and a light beard indicated his lack of attention to his toilet. He quite listlessly allowed Hamilton to enter and look about his chalet at the east end of the village. From the beach and the street, there was now a hubub of noise as people, all of whom seemd to be women, met and conversed. Bob Ewell appeared like the last man in the place, apart from the investigators.

But even on him, there were signs of "Christine." His eyebrows and nails were not masculine. On the television set, there was a picture of two women in evening dresses, masses of curls piled up onto their heads, dangling earrings, and lots of jewelry. Bud easily picked out which one was Bob Ewell. The vivacious buxom blonde must have been his wife. Ewell followed the detective's eyes right to the picture. He went up and turned it over right away. Then, thinking better of it. he pitched it face-down onto an armchair. "There'll be no more of that," he said huskily.