Sam Yerger, whose mother “was married to Judge Anse’s law partner” (168) is waiting for Binx at Aunt Emily’s house and asks Binx to meet him in the basement. Binx summarizes Sam’s background as a writer and his marriage to “a New Orleans beauty” (168). Sam and Binx know each other because every “[n]ow and then he turns up in New Orleans on a lecture tour and visits [Binx’s] aunt and horses around with Kate and [Binx]” (170).

When Binx meets with Sam in the basement, Binx “notice[s] that Kate has begun peeling plaster from the wall of the basement” (170). Sam tells Binx that Kate needs Binx’s help to move to New York. Once there, she will see a clinician who “is chronically ill himself and sees no more than a handful of patients” (170). Kate will live with “a little bitty dried-up old thing” (171) named the Princess and provide the Princess with companionship. Binx asks what’s happened, and Sam explains that the night before, he enjoyed four hours of animated conversation with Aunt Emily and Kate, during which Sam found Kate to be “the most fascinating woman in New Orleans” (172). The following morning, Kate did not come to breakfast, which worried Sam enough to “kick the door down” (172), which is when he discovered Kate asleep “and there was a bottle of capsules open on the table” (172).