Something blue

CHAPTER 1

HE PUNCHED the bell. The door choked. He heard Nan calling down his name.

("I've got so much to tell you," she had said on the phone just now.)

He bounded up the stairs, they slipped arms around each other's waists, and went through the Uttle hall of the flat into what the girls' Aunt Emily called the back room—a big shabby room with a wide window, beyond which the city of San Francisco fell away.

Dorothy was there. "Hi, Johnny," she greeted him. "How was Columbia University? Did you learn everything?" ,^.

"Oh, pretty near," he said amiably. "How are your He looked down at Nan. 'His hand still held her Hghtly at the waist.

"Dear John," said Nan Padgett, articulating precisely, as if she had practiced this, "I'm in love!" Her brown eyes shone with the news. "I'm engaged to be married!"

Well, he gave her credit for being direct and for being prompt with this blow.

"'You kinda look it, Nan," he said gravely, and took his hand slowly away. '"Weill I want to hear . . ."

Dorothy said, "Don't worry. You're going to hear! She's got no more than her left toe on the ground. First, come help me mix you a drink."

"I sure will," said Johnny.

He saw Nan go waltzing away toward the big window. Maybe she felt reheved to have told him. He turned into the little closed-in pantry where Dorothy had assembled the makings. He Hterally couldn't see Dorothy. He dumped in-

gredients together, tasted. As he swallowed he said to himself, O.K. swallow it. AU right, you got it down.

Now he could see Dorothy's blonde head and Dorothy's anxious blue eyes.

"I had a hunch, you know," he said cozily. (She didn't have to know how recent the hunch was.) "Don't you worry about me, Dot."

Dorothy said indignantly, "She's about wild. She's on Cloud Nine."

"As it should be." He patted Dorothy's shoulder to stop her. He wouldn't talk about Nan in a comer.

Dorothy was Nan's cousin, a little the older of the two— certainly the more worldly one. Dorothy had beaux by the dozen. Maybe Dorothy could never reach Cloud Nine any more.

He swallowed again, put the shaker on the tray and carried the tray into the big room. "Start at the beginning," he said cheerfully.

"His name is Richardson Bartee. I wish he were here. But he had to go back this week and tend to business. He's flying up on Friday." Nan tumbled all this out.

"From where is he flying up?" asked Johnny politely.

"Oh, listen ..." Nan lit on the couch and patted an invitation. John sat downi beside her, marveling. Nan was usually the shy one, the little one with the quaint defensive air of dignity. Now she seemed bursting with joyous energy. "How can I tell you about him! He's big and— and good-looking and—" Words wouldn't do what Nan's face was doing in the way of description. "He's got a vineyard. Or anyhow, his family has. And a winery. Imaginel And I'm going to Hve in the south—"

"With vine leaves in your hair." Johnny grinned across at Dorothy. "I see what you mean," he said. "This kid is off the ground all right."

Dorothy was sitting and sipping. Dorothy, usually so casual and gay, didn't smile.

Nan put her hand on the cushion between them. "Ah, Johnny, we've been awful fond of each other, you and I. And I always will be fond of you. But it never was hke this! Do you believe me?"

He stiffened a little with the stab of this. He reminded himseff how young she was. "I believe you." He went on

gallantly, "I won't say the old ticker isn't a little bent, honey, but it's still going."

Nan sighed.

Johnny put his nose in the glass. "When and where did you meet this fellow?" he asked her dreaming face.

"Two months ago. Mr. Copeland introduced us."

"Why wasn't I written? Never mind, don't answer that.'' He knew the answer very well. How could she have written him, or anyone, a day-by-day description of falHng in love. "What say we all go some very fancy place for dinner?" he asked restlessly. "On me. To celebrate."

"We can't budge," said Dorothy. "We've got a phone call in for Paris, France."

"For Aunt Emily? That where she is? I thought she and Hattie Cox were going around the world."

"They are," said Dorothy, "but Paris is the farthest they've got yet. They're on some kind of an expedition today, because we haven't been able to reach her. The hotel expects her back before midnight."

"Haven't we time for dinner?"

"Midnight in Paris, France," Dorothy reminded.

"You mean to tell me Aunt Emily doesn't even Icnow about this?"

"Not yet." _

"When did this engagement happen? Last night?"

"Since Sunday." Nan sighed, as if this had been a century.

"I suppose you'll have to let Emily get all the way around the world before the wedding," he said comfortably.

"No," said Nan. "That's just it. Dick and I- want to be married right now. Why not? What have I got to wait for? My job? There are a million stenographers and every single one of them can speU better than I can. Mr. Copeland isn't going to care. I want to be married to Dick—and help him in the vineyards. And that's all on earth I want to do."

Johnny was astonished. This didn't sound like Nan. Shy Nan, hesitant Nan, Nan unsure of herself. "Won't that be a Httle rough on Emily?" he said gently, and knew that Dorothy stirred.

"1 don't think so," cried Nan, "because HstenI Dick says

we can get married and fly to Europe on our honeymoon. And see Aunt Emily. Wouldn't that please her?"

"Not as a surprise," said Dorothy quietly. Johnny was startled.

"Your fellow must be in the chips," he murmured.

"It will be very extravagant," said Nan serenely, "but Dick knows Aunt Emily is all I've got—except Dotty, of course. He understands. He's an orphan, too. I think . . ."

"I thought you mentioned his family."

"Oh, well, there's an uncle and a grandmother. And I guess the uncle's got a wife. I haven't met them yet. There hasn't been time."

He thought there should have been time. There should have been a lot more time. Nan was speeding and spinning. He wanted to put out both hands and hold her back and slow her down.

Now she said, all sparkling, "Johnny, you're going to have to stand up with us. You're nearly family, after all these years."

"I'm going to nm this wedding," he heard Dorothy say loudly. "Vm your family, please remember. And we're going to talk to Emily before we plan how or when. So calm downi."

"Oh, Dot! I'm doing what you want. I'm calling Aunt Emily."

Johnny perceived the conflict clearly now.

Dorothy changed the subject. "Going to be home all summer, Johnny? Summer school?"

"Nope. I'll get my doctorate in exactly one more year. Comes out nice and even. I'm stale on biology."

"Going to work this siunmer, then?"

"Don't know yet. Don't intend to work very hard," he grinned. "Maybe Roderick Grimes will have one of his projects for me. They're fun."

Nan frowned. "Don't you let him send you off some place," she said with that gay vehemence so unlike the old Nan. "At least not this weekendl"

"This weekend!"

"Well, I hope . . ."

'Tou mean to tell me you expect to be a married woman in a matter of days!" he exclaimed. "I don't believe it. How old are you, baby?"

"I'm twenty," Nan said defiantly.

"Actually," said Dorothy dryly, "she's young enough to wait, don't you think, 'til Emily gets around the world?"

Nan sighed the kind of sigh that announced an old argument come up again. "I'll just bet Aunt Emily won't make me wait," she said.

"Nobody would make you/' Dorothy began, and the phone rang.

Nan snatched for it, pinning Johimy Sims in his comer of the couch because the long phone cord crossed his body.

He heard a voice say, "On your call to Paris, France . . ."

His eyes sought Dorothy's. Dorothy didn't like this speeding and spinning either. He said to Dorothy, "I hope this chap is over twenty-one."

"Oh, he is that," said Dorothy tartly. "He's thirty-two years old."

"Ssshhh—" said Nan.

Johnny swallowed shock. Yet he himself was twenty-eight. He could hear the operators' voices singsonging across the continent, across the ocean.

He heard Emily, herself, say, "Yes?"

"Aunt Emily! It's Nan!"

"Nan! Dear, is anything wrong?"

Johnny found he could visualize Aunt Emily Padgett's'^ small face, wt^h the sharp little nose, frosted with old-fashioned white powder,' and her pale brown hair going up all around.

"Not a thing," cried Nan in the loud clear voice that had to go all the way to France.. "Everything's wpnderful! I have news!" Dorothy had risen and stood close by. Nan wasn't seeing Dorothy, or Johrmy, either. "I'm in love," she shouted across the world. "I'm engaged. I'm going to be married!"

"Oh, NanI"

"Listen, Aunt Emily, we want to get married right away and fly to Emope and meet you. We could meet you in Rome. Next week? Wouldn't that be fun?"

"Nan . . . it's Johnny, isn't it?"

"What?"

"Johnny Sims?"

Nan took in her breath. She didn't look down at Johnny, pinned there. "No, no, it isn't. It's somebody—you never met him but he's wonderful and I know you'll think so too . . . and I'm so happy. Aunt Er surprise you—"

"Who?" The syllable crossed the sound.

"His name is Richardson Bartee. son. It's a family name."

Nobody spoke in Paris, France.

"Aunt Emily, can you hear me? I Bartee. He's from Hestia . . . Anc Emily? . . ."

Now there was a sound on the wi ''Yes, dear." Or it might have been "H

"Emily, dear, we want to get m fly to Rome. You ipM be there?"

"Don't ..." A groan.

"What?"

"No."

"Emilyr

"Don't . . "

"Emily, darling, we just can't wait Nan began to coax. "We thought . . ."

""You must not marry this man!" Hij

"Aunt Emily, what did you say?"

"I'm coming home. I'll fly. Quick as

"Please, I don't understand. Emily trip. What's the matter?"

"Wait. Promise me you'll wait?"

"Of course, I—"

"What am I going to do?" said 1 far away.

Dorothy snatched the phone out c

lightly. "She'll be home in a couple of days-want to call her back?"

"She hung up," Nan said angrily and shook Dorothy's arm. "It sounded as if she knows who as if she knows something bad about him. Die challenged them. Dorothy was biting her Bp.

"Yes, it kinda did," said Johnny honestly.

"Well, she couldn't," said Nan, "because tli be anything . . ." She walked across the room ai by the window. Now the sparkle and the flyi gone. Nan was her old self, dignified, lonely forlorn.

The big room was still. Dorothy stood witl clasped. Johnny sat in his comer. Nan looked ( city.

"She's made some kind of mistake," Nan sai ment. "Probably she couldn't hear me very well."

"That's possible," Dorothy said quietly.

"I'm sorry she didn't understand," Nan wer and I are in love and going to be married, going to change that." Her dark head came up.

"No use to worry," Dorothy said, "until you to worry about."

"Oh, I woni worry," Nan said remotely. "T to call Dick. I'm not going to upset him. Bee is going to be upset." The dream was soberec back in her eyes. "Will you stay for dinner, • asked politely. "I don't feel like going out, some cold beef." She was aloof. It was as if had turned to a cold close fog and swallow< reach.

out in Marin County last year, s headquarters now.

He got into his four-year-old Pl> home. What was the matter with Er what was the matter with Richardsoi beheve that Emily had made a mists odd name. There was also the pla must know this man or know of hij Nan must not marry him? Johnny sho

Looky here, he said to J. Sims, i manger stuffi Nan's in love with 1 And whatever Emily's got on her i rough on Nan.

Johnny respected Emily Padgett would not turn out to be some female

Emily had been mother and fathe next door, whom he could remembei sash, the other a pink one, to Sunday

Emily Padgett's brother and siste perished, together with their spouse: den highway crash years ago. Emily any other objective of her own, t cousins in to raise. Dorothy was the of the brotlier. Dorothy's last name, \ Padgett but something else. Johnny ( and he was not quite sure it wasn't No matter. Emily had made them joined all P.T.A.'s and Mother's C Brownies and Girl Scouts and the ^ fine parent.

She had also earned a hving w

dance at the high school. Nan had no d Johnny take her?

Jolinny had protested that this wasn't a goc he had let himself be talked into it. Dorothy oflF in a gold-spangled dress with flowers on h Dorothy, who was seventeen by then, had tun and fair, surrounded by boys, picking and cho( them gaily. But little Nan was different—sensitive

Nan had worn a pale green dress that nigf looked ready to weep. Johrmy remembered reso he were going to do this, he'd do it right, going to look dragooned, or superior, or bor fed and encouraged her with attention. M; Backed her up. He'd been touched by the sk of Nan's confidence.

After that he'd kept an eye on her. Watched Seen to it that she got to go wherever it n-she went. In a way, she'd grown up with Jo back. The first time Nan tiuned down a date 1 tried to explain that she ought not to fend off But she'd been stubborn.

So they wrote letters back and forth when months in the service and all the fi^rst year h< east. Last summer, they were a pair. Johnn; had backed up Nan's little figure at dances and ]

A courtship, he thought now, is a tentatr exploring, a growing thing. There should com when you know. But Nan was so young. He'« for her so long. Maybe he'd been a little the ought to be glad she'd fallen in love. He mus had not thoughtlessly kept her from this experie:

There was no denying he felt his loss more

sense their deep pleasure that he was home and in the room with them. But it wasn't necessary to pay attention.

Under cover of a commercial, he asked his mother whether Emily Padgett had ever mentioned a Richardson Bartee.

"I don't think so, dear. Emily's gone off around the world. I guess you know that."

"Um hum." He didn't feel like mentioning the possibility that Emily was tinning back, for an unknown reason.

"Did you see the girls?" his mother asked. "I haven't seen them for ages. How are they?"

"All right."

His mother pulled her feelers in.

In the morning, Johnny went to see Roderick Grimes, who was a pink and hairless man of great wealth whose avocation it was to write semi-scholarly books about old murder mysteries. Sometimes he hired Johnny to do the research, scavenge around, interview people. Grimes was lazy. He fancied himself the Mycroft type and he was rather brilliant in the armchair. He said that Johnny had a flair.

This morning, Grimes was cordial but indecisive. He had a couple of things in mind, he said; he hadn't chosen between them. Perhaps in another week or so? Johnny was just as glad of a delay.

He called the girls at six, when they'd be home from work. Dorothy answered.

"We've had a cablegram," she told him. "Emily's flying in at noon on Friday."

"Anything I can do?"

"I don't think so, Johnny. We'll just have to wait. Maybe you'd hke to go to the airport with us?"

"Of course. Pick you up downtown?" They made the date.

"One thing, Dot." Johnny felt miserable. He couldn't speak directly to Nan about this. "Nan said Mr. Copeland introduced them. Has she ever asked him what he knows about this . . . about Bartee?"

"Oh, but Mr. Copeland has been away," said Dorothy quickly. "He went to Honolulu with his fairly new wife. Although I think they are coming back—is it Monday? Nan?" Silence on the wire. ''She asks no questions," said Dorothy in a low voice. (He

sensed that Nan had gone away, could no longer hear.) "She's not in a mood to be practical, Johnny."

He knew this was so. Who ever was? The sweet dizziness of love didn't wait for a dossier. When had it?

"Isn't this . . . Bar tee coming up on Friday?" he asked.

"Yes, but not until the evening . . ."

He couldn't think of any more to say.

When they walked into the airport waiting room on Friday, shock exploded. The Miss Padgetts were being paged. The yoimg man at the information desk said gingerly, "I'm soiTy to have to tell you that Miss Emily Padgett has been taken ill on the aiiplane. The suggestion is that you might like to call her own doctor."

"/«.' How ill?"

"Her heart, they tliink. There's a nxu'se on the airplane. Don't worr>' too much." The young man was in duty bound to say this, but he didn't create a lot of reassurance.

Johnny whirled them into action, to call Dr. Keams, to make arrangements at a hospital. Johnny held a frightened girl on each arm as they waited the last tense two minutes at the barrier.

Emily came off the plane on a stretcher and they ran to her. The small face was gray. The girls murmuredl^and touched her v>iTh loving hands.

It was Johnny who said loudly, "Nobody got married, Emily." That was all the reference there was to Richardson Bartee before Emily vanished into the ambulance.

At the hospital they were djslayed by the need to answer questions for admission. At last, they started down a corridor. It was a small private hospital, Dr. Keams' favorite, all on one floor. They came upon the doctor around a corner.

"She ought to do, with a little sensible care," he told them cheerfully. "Now, don't excite her or upset her. Don't stay too long. Not now. Excuse me? Got a patient in the next wing. Cheer up, now."

The girls stepped softly into Emily's room with Johnny behind them. Emily, on the bed, looked old. More murmurs of love given, received.

"Don't worry about anything," Nan said uselessly. The whole room throbbed with unasked questions and unadmitted anxieties.

"Maybe she ought to be let alone,'' said Johnny loudly. ''That's a brute of a trip she's just made, remember?" He was going to bully the girls out of here. This was no good. ''You could come back tonight at visiting hours. Hm, Emily?" Emily's sad eyes looked up at him and he knew they flickered. "Give me—until tomorrow ..." she said weakly. "Of course, darling." Dorothy kissed her hair. Nan picked up her hand. "I wouldn't want to do anything—ever—to hurt you in any way," Nan said, asking for absolution.

"Darling, I know that," said Emily, her eyes aglow with love and a mysterious sorrow. So they left her.

Johnny took them home to the flat. Scarcely a word was said on the way. Once in the mirror he saw Nan's silent tears. He wanted to say, "Don't blame yourself for Emily's heart!" but his tongue felt tied.

At the flat, Dorothy said there was nothing, really, that he could do and Nan said yearningly, "Dick will be here. Dick can take us to the hospital tomorrow."

So Johnny left them. He rode around aimlessly for a long time. Felt useless, worried. He decided, by some uneasiness in his bones, that he must stay in town overnight, so he found a phone to call liis mother.

"John? Oh, good! We were about to go to the Miller's for dinner and there was an urgent message. The Schmidt Memorial Hospital wants you to call them, right away."

"Then I better do it," said Johnny, so surprised and frightened that he hung up without telling her anything.

The hospital said that Miss Emily Padgett urgently requested Mr. John Sims to come see her this evening. Visiting hours from seven to eight. "Tell her I'll be there."

Johnny hung up, rubbed his face. Stood in the phone booth.

His mother and father would have gone out. Well, he'd tell them in the morning where Emily was and how. He would tell nobody anything tonight. He knew that when he, Johnny Sims, old friend and neighbor, got to the hospital at seven o'clock, he was going to be put right smack in the middle of whatever trouble there was going to be.

A little before seven, in Emily's flat, Nan flew to take the phone. "Dick! Where are you, darling?"

"Just off the plane, love. Shall I come right up?"

"Oh, please! Oh, Dick, Aunt Emily is in the hospital."

"Hospital! Wliere?"

"Right here! The Schmidt Memorial. She flew back. Oh, Dick, I didn't call you—but she was so upset . . ."

"Wait a minute. Your aunt is back! In town!"

"Yes. Yes, she is. I talked to her in Paris. When I told her about us, she said she'd fly home right away."

"But why, dearest? You say she was upset?"

"Yes, she was. She said I wasn't to m-marry you. I must wait ... I don't know why. We can't talk to her now. It's her heart. We can't even see her again until tomorrow."

"Is it serious?"

"The doctor doesn't think so. But . . ."

"Well, then . . ." he said soothingly. "Nothing to worry about. I'll be there just as soon as I can."

Nan put the phone down. "You see!" she said to Dorothy. "He doesn't know why she should be upset!"

Dorothy said, in a moment, "Maybe we'll get it straightened out tomorrow." .-^ --

CHAPTER 3

Johnny Sims entered the hospital on the stroke of seven; nobody asked him his business. He turned right on an inner corridor and walked as far as he could passing several wings, until he came to the last wing of all. He turned left, and then, looking ahead of him, realized that a door at the far end of this last wing stood open. He could have come in that way, directly from the parking lot. Well, he hadn't. No matter.

Emily's room was the second from the end of the wing.

She was sitting a little higher; she looked a little better.

"Johnny, dear, close the door." He closed it. "Sit down. I shouldn't talk too long."

He pulled the straight chair close to the bed and leaned his head into the light. "Take it easy. I've got good ears."

"You've known her so long. You're fond of Nan,"

"True," he agreed.

"Will you help me, Johnny?''

"Certainly."

"I don't know what to do."

Now he thought he could see her heart struggling in her breast. He wanted to ease it. "Just tell me," he urged quietly.

"First, promise you won't tell Nan without permission."

He winced inside, but he had to agree. "I promise. Go ahead."

"You do keep your word." Emily made this a statement.

"I do," he agreed.

She smiled a little. The smile was for him, affectionate and trusting. And absolutely binding upon him. "I can't . . . go anywhere . . . just now ..." she began again with difficulty. "And it can't be my decision. It must be his. So you must go."

Johnny said nothing. He couldn't yet understand.

"The very worst thing that could have happened , . ." Now her head began to turn to and fro upon the pillow. Her heart labored, as he thought he could tell. "How could I imagine!"

"Don't put any steam in it," said Johnny gently. "Just tell me what I must do and I will go and do it."

"Yes," said Emily gratefully. Her head stopped that desperate wagging motion. "But first you have to know. Nan isn't my brother Henry's child. I never had a brother Henry. She's the child of a brother of mine whose name she's never heard. You see, I changed all the names. I made up lies. I had to."

"Go ahead," said Johnny quietly.

"Nan's father is in prison. He was convicted of murder seventeen years ago."

Johnny kept smiling. He was surprised, but not too shocked. He had expected something as bad as this.

"They said he murdered Nan's mother . . ,'' Emily's voice sank to a whisper. "Poor Christy McCauley."

Johnny swallowed.

"My brother Clin to is in San Quentin, Johnny. I want you to see him. Ask him what we aie to do. He must decide."

"I see. I will," Johnny said soothingly.

"No, you don't see," said Emily impatiently. "He did not kill Christy. He was convicted but he wasn't guilty. The baby ... He and I didn't see why the baby shoiild suffer at all. It was bad enough that he had to lose his wife and go to prison for what he hadn't done. Why should there be bad added to bad? Why should the baby grow up in the shadow of such a terrible thing? People believing that her father killed her mother. So I took the baby. I made them give me the baby. I had an agreement with the old man. And I changed my name and her name and Dorothy's name, too. And I was never going to tell her. And all these seventeen years she hasn't known and none of it has ever touched her or hurt her."

"She's had wonderful loving care," Johnny said softly.

"Yes," said Emily and plucked her sheet.

"Now, you feel—if she is to marry . . . ?" he began. ...

"No, no, noT Emily gasped. "Don't try to guess, Jolmny. It only takes longer."

So he waited.

"My brother's name is Clinton McCauley," she said in a moment. "I've always gone to -see him once eyery month. He . . . loves all the news of Nan. But now . . ." She gathered strength and went on. "Christy was killed in the Bartee's house in Hestia. You see, she was related."

Johnny took in air. "This Richardson Bartee is related to Nan?" he asked as calmly as he could. He thought, well, that's it, then, and it's bad, all right.

But Emily shook her head. "Don't guess," she said feebly. "It's worse than you can guess. Much worse. No, not related. The old man had two wives. There's nothing like that."

So Johnny just waited.

"For seventeen years," said Emily in a moment, "Clint has been sure . . ."

"Yes?"

That the boy killed Christy. The wild kid-fifteen years old."

"What boy?"

"Richaidson Bartee," said Emily, her eyes pits of sorrow. "Now do you see?"

All Johnny's nerves tingled. "You say your brother is sure of this? Couldn't you have . . . ?"

"Proved it?" said Emily with vigor. "No. I tried." Emily was up on her elbow and he was too shocked to press her back into a position of rest. "How can I let Nan marry" cried Emily, "the very one—the one rotten evil soul in all this world—who killed her mother and let her father go to prison for it?"

"You can't," said Johnny horrified. (Oh, Lord, it's bad, he thought. Poor Nan.) But he had to think of Emily just now. "Hush, lie back. You're not going to let her marry him. Just tell Nan all this. That's all you really need to do.''

"And there goes," said Emily, "the meaning of my life and all of Clinton's sacrifice."

The room was quiet. He was vaguely aware of sounds out in the corridors, of lights and shadows in the windows of the next wing, across the narrow court between. He himself felt too shocked and sad to move or speak.

"But I can't tell her, Johnny," said Aunt Emily at last. "Not until Clinton knows. He must decide that she be told. You can see that?"

""Yes."

"So will you go to see him?"

;;Yes."

"And will you help Nan, afterwards?"

-Yes."

"The one wrong man in all the world . . . the one wrong man for Nan."

She looked so exhausted that he was frightened. "Put it o£F your mind," he said gently. "I will go to the prison and see your brother. I will tell him. I will ask him what he wants you and me to do. And then I will do it. Don't you fret any more. Nan will be all right, you know," he went on confidently.

"You'll stand by her, Johnny?"

"You and I and Dorothy and my Ma, and all of us will stand by her," he promised warmly. "And it won't be as

terrible as you think. Listen . . ." He was frantic to comfort her. "She's aheady had what you wanted for her. She didn't grow up in any shadow at all, but in full sun. She's been as well-raised as any child on earth. You've done the job, Emily. And because you've done it, she's going to be able to take this. You'll be proud of her."

"Thank you, Johnny," Emily said. Her face was relaxing. "God bless you, Johnny Sims. I hope you're right. Yes, thank you."

"You rest now," Johnny kissed her fondly. "Leave everything to me."

"I will," said Emily. "Dear Johnny. I feel much better now."

In a little while Johnny left her. His feet fell fatefully on the vinyl floor. In the corridor, he turned sharp and went out at the end of the wing. He was fiUed with dismay. Dismay.

He had no idea what the truth was about the old tragedy. It didn't make a lot of difference what the truth was. Nan was going to be torn in bits, whatever it was. And he wasn't at all sure how Nan could take it.

After Johnny had gone, Emily Padgett lay quietly. The storm in her Ij^art and mind seemed to have died to a sdd and^ yet rather a sweet calm.

He had left the door a trifle ajar and she could tell that the hospital was full of visitors. Feet came and went in the corridor. People laughed. The world had not come to an end, after all.

How right she had been to call on Johnny Sims. Dear reliable Johnny with the kind green eyes in the long-jawed face. Tall steady Johnny who had been brought up to do the one simple right and basic thing. To keep his word. Johnny would see Clinton. Tell him as gently as such things could be told. Johnny would look out for Nan. And there was truth in all he had said. To be tested as Nan would now be tested was not necessarily terrible.

If only Nan would turn to Johnny. Johnny had always been strength and shelter for her and all might be weU at last. And the truth told. The long lie wrung out to all its useful purpose and discarded.

So she sighed deep, and rested.

The door moved. A man came in and pushed it shut

behind him. For a moment, she thought Johnny had returned. What time is it? she thought in confusion. Is it morning?

He came toward the bed, moving quietly. He wore a hat. So she saw that he was not Johnny.

He was tall and big and his eyes were a cool gray. His mouth was cut large and full and almost too well, carved and curved like the mouth on a statue. He came around the bed, his back to the window, his face to the door.

"I thought it was you. Miss McCauley," he said. "Do you remember me?"

In seventeen years, he was not bigger, but the flesh on his face was not as fresh as she remembered it. "You're making Nan mighty unhappy," he chided.

"II" Emily raised up. "You'll never marry Clinton's child," she defied him. "Not you."

"Why not? Who blames her for her father's crime?"

Emily's heart was jumping in anger. "Your crime!"

"You still insist?" He sounded sorry and even weary. He turned and touched a cord at the window that tripped the Venetian blinds. "Why haven't you told her, then, what you think I did?"

"I will. I will," she blustered. She knew this wasn't good for her heart.

He stood looking down. He had not taken off his hat.

"You think you'll marry Christy's child?" said Emily with bitter triumph. "You never will."

"Oh, I don't think you'll tell her very much now," he said pleasantly. "You've missed yoiu' chance." His hands took the pillow's edge. "You shouldn't have come back."

"My brother will tell her," Emily said sharply.

"Maybe he'll try," said the big blond dangerous man. "But it will be too late." He jerked at the pillow. Her head bounced.

"No," said Emily feebly. "No use . . ."

"She doesn't know her father," the man said, quite softly and reasonably. "Why will she believe what he tells her? If he can find her, to tell her anything. There isn't any proof, you know. There never will be."

"Then . . ."

"Oh, I can't afford to have you mLxing her up before the wedding, Miss McCauley. There's a reason—"

Emily tried to reach the bell-push, but he didn't permit it. The pillow came down upon her face. The last thing she tliought in triumph and also in defeat was: "This proves it! At last!"

Richardson Bartee watched the time on his wrist. He took plenty of time. When enough had gone by, he put the pillow back where it had been before.

He crossed the very silent, the breathless room and opened the door 1by the shank of the handle, smearing the place where his fingers had to touch it. People were standing in doorways, talking. He dodged a red-haired woman in a mink jacket, hand to his hat, obscuring his face. He got the thirty feet to the door at the end of the wing. Then he was in the parking lot.

His car was not in the parking lot, but around the comer, snug to a flowering bush. It was only a rented car, of coiurse, but Dick Bartee hadn't risked more than he knew was necessary. He was older and wiser than he had been seventeen years ago.

Twenty minutes later, he parked the rented car, crossed the sidewalk, punched the bell.

"Dick? Darling?"

He ran up. He was still holding Nan when the phone rang.

Johnny went home after all, and the phone was ringing as he got there.

"She couldn't have died!" he exploded, when Dorothy's voice had told him.

"The doctor says—it sometimes happens—to a sick and tired heart." Dorothy was crying.

Johnny's mind was churning. Why, he had just seen Emily! Could not tell the girls what Emily had said to him. Wasn't free to tell them, yet. He didn't want to be a man keeping a stubborn secret and the girls trying to guess what it was. He wouldn't put them or himself in that position. Could not even say he'd seen her.

But how could she have died!

"Look, Dotty," he said, "would you like the loan of my mother?"

'Dick is here," Dorothy sobbed, "but I think . . . Oh, Johnny, we could use her."

So Johnny hung up, dashed out, roared down two blocks to the Miller's house, rousted his parents out of their bridge game.

"I'll take you in, Barbara," his father said. "You go on home with John now. Pack. I'll explain to the Millers."

Johnny said, "Wait. I want you both to remember—you don't know a thing about the hospital calling me tonight."

"You saw Emily, Johnny?"

"Yes, but you mustn't say so. Mind, now."

"Why not?"

"Because Emily asked me to do something. Secretly.''

"You are still going to do it?" his mother asked tearfully, "now that she . . . ?"

"Of course, I'm going to do it," said Johnny fiercely. "I said I would."

CHAPTER 4

Johnny was acquainted with one of the chaplains at the prison, a man they called Father Klein. Johnny had talked with him about a convict there, in the course of doing research for Roderick Grimes. So, by ten o'clock the next morning, Johnny was in the chaplain's little office, throwing himself upon the man's mercy.

"You'd like me to tell him about his sister's death?" asked Father Klein.

"I've got to see him myself," said Johnny. "She sent me on a—a mission. Can you help me?"

"Is it about his daughter?" asked the chaplain promptly.

"It is." Johnny felt surprise.

"Then I'll fetch him. Would it be better if I told him about Miss Editli?"

"Edithr

"I believe she called herself Emily."

/ changed all the names. I luid to. Johnny remembered. "I wish you would," he said gratefully, and then he waited.

For Nan's father.

Johnny had not seen the girls last evening. Had not met this Richardson Bartee. First he must find out what to do from Nan's father.

At last the chaplain returned with a small thin white-haired man, who looked very frail. He had a limp, Johnny saw. His skin was papery white. There was something uncanny about the face. It was serene.

"John Sims? I have heard of you," this man said in a soft cultivated voice. "From my sister. And now she's gone?"

"It was her heart. I'm sorry, sir."

"She was good," the man said. Johnny had not heard that word used just that way for a long, long time, if ever. "How is my Polly?" the man asked.

"I beg your pardon."

"Mary. I mean Nan, Her name is Mary. I used to call her Polly—when I was young and she was only one or two. 'Polly McCauley' I used to call her. Silly little rhyme. Christy never liked it."

"She's—she's sad, of course. My mother's with .her.", Johnny found ^mself floundering. The avalanche of unfamiliar designations confused him. Nor did he know this man or understand him or believe in him, one way or the other.

"Would you like me to leave you?" the chaplain asked, sensing some kind of hesitation..

"Just a minute, sir." Johnny grasped for hefp. "I think you'd better stay. He may need an older friend than I—"

"Please stay. Father Klein," said the prisoner mildly. "What is the trouble?"

Johnny didn't know how he was going to say what the ti-ouble was. He began slowly. "You knew Miss Emily went ofi^ on a trip. I'm sorry, I can't call her , . ,"

The little man smiled faintly. "Yes, I know," he said. "I was glad. She never did things for herself .... Dear, good Emily. Where was it that she died?"

"Why it was here." The little man did not react with surprise. He seemed detached, as if distances and places in the outside world were simply rumors to him. Johnny plunged aliead, "Emily did leave, some ten weeks ago, I

think. Took ship through the Panama Canal, spent time in New York, and then in London. She got as far as Paris. From there she flew back."

The prisoner was listening courteously.

"Nan had met a man and fallen in love and got engaged to be married," said Johnny in a rush.

A faint smile came to McCauley's lips.

"She phoned Emily to tell her. That's why Emily flew home. Mr. McCauley, please remember that I don't know anything about all this. Except what Emily told me and— asked me to do. The man," Johnny's voice almost stuck in his throat, "the man Nan wants to marry is named Richardson Bartee."

Clinton McCauley's face grew thinner. The cheeks hollowed. The lines tightened. The serenity was destroyed.

"He is from Hestia, California. He is thirty-two years old. His family has a vineyard. Miss Emily wanted you to say what is to be done."

The man's head was going forward and down. Father Klein sprang to get him a glass of water. The chaplain's lips were tight.

McCauley gulped water. He said in a whimper, "Must it be?" He turned his face up toward Johnny and whispered, "Must I stand for this too?" The prisoner, with white fingers clamped to the edge of Father Klein's desk began to talk. "Listen to me. I know many a man in prison will say he's innocent. I know it's so general a thing, it doesn't meet belief. But I never killed my own Christy! I was convicted. I understand that. I was convicted by society for other things society didn't like about me. And I have borne it. But how can I bear this! It was Dick Bartee who killed my v^dfe!"

"So Emily said," Johnny croaked. The burst of pain from behind that mask was a shocking thing. "She said there was no way to prove it . . .'^

"How can I let him have my little girl?"

Johnny leaned back and felt the sympathy leave him suddenly. "Don't let him have her," he said crisply. "Tell her about all of it. That will fix that."

"Yes," said Clinton McCauley. "Yes." He looked at the chaplain. "What will it do to her? To find out her mother was brutally killed. To find out her father's an old jailbird.

To find the man she . . ." He looked at Jolinny. "She-cares for tliis man?"

"Yes," said Johnny. "I doubt if she'd promise to marry him if she didn't." Johnny couldn't analyze what made him so tart. Clinton McCauley made him uneasy. Johnny didn't like a mart\T-type.

The little mim put his fingers to his temples. "What is right?"

"Listen," said Johnny, "aren't you missing the point here? If this Dick Bartee ever killed anybody then Nan mustn't marry him. This has absolutely nothing to do with you or your conscience or what you have to bear." He stopped, embarrassed. "I'm sorry . . ."

"The boy is right," the chaplain said gravely.

"What can be the meaning of an accident hke this?^ McCauley half-whispered. "That she should meet this man— of all men—"

"What makes you think Bartee is guilty?" Johnny asked bluntly.

"He must have done it," said McCauley. "For seventeen years I have believed . . ."

"And you may have been wrong for seventeen years,'' said Johnny grimly. "But it's up to you, sir. I promised» Emily. It's yoii? decision."

CHnton McCauley began to beat his hands softly on the desk and Johnny watched. Suspiciously.

"Vve thought of something," said the chaplain, suddenly. "And Sims here is qualified, . too. Why don'jt you ask him to check for you?"

"Check?" said McCauley.

"He's done work for Roderick Grimes. Couldn't he check the alibi?"

Johnny was listening with a sagging jawbone.

"Isn't it true," said the chaplain, "that you have always said the Bartee boy's alibi was worthless? Now, suppose you are wrong and suppose it does hold? Why then, we would know that the boy had not done it. And your daughter could go on being happy. Just as you and Miss Edith planned for her to be."

Johnny gaped at the chaplain's kind, beaming, rugged face. He was appalled by the naivete of the whole conversation.

"Look," he said. "I'm not a detective. I'm not a police officer. I'm not qualified to check . . ."

"You say she loves him?" (Johnny looked at that white saintly face and it made him uneasy.) "If I have been wrong," said McCauley, "I pray the Lord to let me know it now."

Johnny was shocked. "But Nan has to be told," he said. "You can't let her marry into that family, not knowing. Emily only wanted you to be the one to—to tell me to teU her."

McCauley straightened his slight body. "She mustn't be told," he said, "and her heart broken with this old evil business, and my sister's whole life thrown away. Not if there is anything else at all that we can do. Not if you can prove that I've been wrong."

"I agree," said the chaplain.

"Oh, you do?" said Johnny angrily. He rose. "May I speak to you alone. Father Klein?"

"Surely."

The chaplain led Johnny into a kind of anteroom.

"Look here^" said Johnny, "unless something pretty fishy has been going on, / don't agree, at all. Maybe you know what I don't know. Is that man guilty? Does he know, right now, and none better, that Dick Bartee didn't kill his wiJFe? Because he did it himself, and all this seventeen years' innocence is just phony?"

"Sometimes," the chaplain said calmly, "a prisoner gets obsessed with a phony innocence, as I see you realize. I can only tell you that ever since I've been here McCauley has believed . . ."

"Believed," said Johnny.

"Exactly. He believes that he did not do it. He has believed that the Bartee boy did.

"But what gets me is now he's willing to change his mind and believe that Bartee is innocent! Which I can't swallowl How can you swallow that? What kind of man is this? Why hasn't he been out on parole?"

"Things happen," the chaplain said vaguely. "Whenever the Board gets around to his case . . ."

"What things?"

"Oh, twice he was involved with an escape attempt. At least sympathetically—'

"I don't get it."

"Not that he meant to escape. But that stops parole, you know. Things happen to—well, keep him here. You might say he has given up the world," the chaplain went on gently.

"Then he's not normal," snapped Johnny. "He's nuts or something. And you can't believe a word he says."

"It is hard to imagine," the chaplain said slowly, "what way a man can be changed in his soul if he has had to bear justice. Perhaps McCauley has made prison his home, confinement his cross. He assists me, you know."

"He's become something like a monk?" said Johnny. "That's what you are sa>dng?"

The chaplain nodded.

"What about Bartee? What do you think? Is he guilty?"

"I don't know," the chaplain said, "That's why I suggested that you try to find out."

"What makes you think I can find out, after seventeen years? And tell me this, while you're at it. Wliy should / mix in this anyway?" Johnny felt wild.

"That I don't know either," the chaplain said. "I don't know why Miss Emily chose to send you, you see. If you could find out, of course, it would save this Httle girl heartbreak." ^

Johnny looked into die chaplain's eyes and thought he was in a dream, a romantic dream of innocence and mercy.

"The police will haidly try," the chaplain said gently. "And there's no money to hire^ a detective. It would have to be a friend."

"A woman got killed," Johnny said harshly, himting for something logical and hard and reliably true. "I suppose it wasn't suicide?"

"No."

"Now either her husband did it, or this Bartee did it, or a thiid party did it. Right?"

"Right." They were eye to eye.

"Since the husband was tried and convicted by law, this would seem the most probable. Only we don't like it much, do we? This makes the httle girl's father a killer and that's unpleasant. Nicer to think of him as a saint." The chaplain's gaze did not falter. "But Bartee," Johnny went on, "now it seems we don't like him for the part either. Nan's in love

with him. It would break her heart. The really nice way for this to come out would be to find a third party. Somebody Nan doesn't give a whoop about. All right." Johnny made a furious gesture. "I don't want Nan's heart broken either, but can't you see how silly—?" Johnny felt stormy. "You can't rearrange what happened" he said, "to make it nicer for a sweet young girl."

"McCauley has no proof that Bartee did the killing," the chaplain said gravely and steadily. "Suppose you found proof that Bartee did not? Then, when we tell Nan the story of her father and mother, as I agree we should, she will at least have the strength and the refuge of the man she loves."

Courtesy of }. Sims, thought Johimy to himself wryly.

"As for McCauley," the chaplain went on, "you find it incredible that he wishes he needn't break her heart? But I can conceive that McCauley not only wishes this but also would rather be rid of the prejudice of an old hatred, of a possible injustice in his thoughts. I can imagine that Clinton McCauley wants to be good. That is a motive that does exist, in some human beings."

Johnny felt himself flushing. He thought, O.K. I guess I'll have to see if I can prove her darling dear's an upright man. He felt very strange, hghtheaded, a little empty. He must have nodded or something because the chaplain opened the door to his oflSce.

The small man sat where they had left him, his head bowed, his lips moving.

". . . from evil. . ." Johnny thought he heard him say.

CHAPTER 5

Johnny vtent over to him. "I wish you would tell me about this whole case," Johnny said to him crisply, with neither sympathy nor hostility.

"Yes, I will do that," said McCauley.

The little lame man with the saint's face looked at the wall. "I went to the Spanish War," he began. "If you can remember it—we fought for an ideal. That's the kind of young man I was. I got hit in my right heel. Not important. Makes me limp. When I came home, Christy and the baby were living with the Baitees in the big old house in Hestia. The old lady was Christy's own grandmother by her first husband. The old lady married old man Bartee about 1917, I think. He'd had a wife before. Nathaniel was the first wife's son and Dick is Nathaniel's son. So Dick is the old man's grandson. Yet he and Christy shared no blood. Bart, Junior, now, he was in the middle. Half brother to Nathaniel, and half brother to Christy's mother. I don't know if that's clear."

"I think so," said Johnny. "His child. Her child. Their child."

"That's right. Well, they all made a big fuss over Christy and she liked it there. She hked the prestige of being a Bar-tee connection, you know, and the comfort. Christy couldn't understand why I wanted her to come away and live in poverty."

"I could have had a job up north, but it would have meant scraping along on a small income, Christy confined, taking care of tfee baby all alone.

"I can see Christy's point of view so clearly, now. Then I was a young man with a limp, a hero returned, ignored. I was frustrated and bitter. 1 wanted to be the head of my family. In that house, the old man was head, and the old lady ran the house and Nathaniel, pussyfooting around with his art and his elegant manners, was the Crown Prince. Or the old lady thought so."

McCauley's voice had changed. It was crisper and harsher. The face was harder. Young McCauley, Johnny perceived, had been no saint.

"The young boys, of course, were in and out," McCauley continued. "Young Bart had gone into the service. I couldn't, because of my foot. Or I think I would have gone. Young Dick they got rid of as best they could by sending him to a military school, not far away. He was hard to handle. His mother was dead. Nathaniel, his father, couldn't do a thing. The old man w.as the only one who could handle ; him at all.

"So, in that household Christy was everybody's pet. She was only twenty-two, pretty and gay. The place was full of servants, fussing over Christy's clothes and Christy's baby. My baby.

"I couldn't persuade Christy to leave there. She had such reasonable reasons why not. I couldn't say, 'Look, it's my pride for which you must give up all this.' Although it was true. So I took to drinking too much. Going out on the town. It's a small town. The whole town watched me. Sometimes I had to be carried home. I took to one particular bar, run by a woman whose reputation was not what the Bartees thought it should have been.

"She meant to be my friend," the prisoner said. "Kate had a kind heart. She'd listen to me curse the Bartees, complain of Christy, and pity myself."

"Then, the next morning, Christy would look at me with her clear sober eyes and I'd be ashamed and everything would be worse than before." He sighed deeply and clasped his hands.

"All right. That night, I had been with Kate. Alone. In her room. I'd had too much. I didn't want anybody called to come fetch me, and Kate understood my pride. So Kate was trying to sober me. I wasn't actually so very late getting back to the Bartee house. It was about midnight. I got off the bus and wobbled up the drive. Long drive. I had my key, opened the front door. Old-fashioned double doors. Night light in the hall. Old-fashioned wood-paneled hall."

The man was describing a vision now and Johnny began to see it too.

"I saw, right away, as soon as I was inside, that the light burned in the old man's study. A square little room across from the bottom of the stairs, about half-way back. I started down the hall and I saw a big iron candlestick lying on the red hall rug. This was strange. So I picked it up. "I held it in my hand. I got opposite the study door. The candlestick belonged in there. I turned into the room and then I saw Christy. Lying on the floor. Her head was bloody. She was dead. I knew that, right away. There was paper money fallen all around her.

"I was numb and sick and I hoped it was a drunken nightmare. I stood there until I heard the old man saying, 'Don't move.' He was on the stairs and he had a gun.

"Christy was dead. The candlestick was the weapon. It was covered with her blood and I had it in my hand."

"Circumstantial," Johnny said. His mouth felt dry.

"That wasn't all," McCauley said. "The wall safe was open. That's where the money had come from. And now I must try to tell you about those pins." He sighed deeply once more. "The old lady had given Christy a jeweled pin on Christy's birthday. It was only about an inch in diameter, flat, made in the shape of a flower. Six petals. Covered with pearls. A diamond in the center. It was worth, I suppose, about two hundred dollars. Christy had asked the old man to keep it in the safe. Now, Kate . . ."

The little man wiped his forehead with his MTist. "Kate also had such a pin." He looked straight into Johnny's eyes with a curious compassion as if to say, T know, I know, you cannot believe this.'

"I was mooning over a glass, to Kate one night. 'Now we could sell my wife's valuable jeweled pin,' I said, 'and get the money to move us north.' Still she wouldn't go. Kate asked me to describe the pin and, when I did, she fetched one exactly like it from a box of trinkets she had. Kate told me that Nathaniel Bartee had given her this pin, years ago. Kate tr«#ted me not to spread this around for a scandal. Kate was just surprised that Christy's pin was supposed to be valuable. If hers was its twin, perhaps hers was valuable too. So I took Kate's pin home with me. I showed it to Christy. She got hers from the safe one day. We compared them. They toere twins. So we' believed what K^ate had said. Christy knew about Kate, you see, and she understood, in a way. But Christy didn't altogether understand." The man shook ghosts out of his head, and pain out of his eyes.

"The old lady told Christy that her first husband had bought the pin. We guessed he must have bought a pair. The old lady must have given the other one to Nathaniel, or Josephine, his wife that died—a long time ago. Anyway, it was, we thought, amusing. Because Nathaniel was such a pussycat. His father, the old man, was disappointed in him and harsh with him. The old lady was always on his side." McCauley brooded.

"Go on," the chaplain said.

"Yes. Well, Christy's pin was back in the safe that night. I had Kate's pin in my pocket to return to her. I'd had it

there for a week. That night, you see, Td drunk too much again. I'd forgotten it again.

"So, that night, when the police came—the old man made Nathaniel call them—why, they searched me and they found Kate's pin. Then they found that Christy's pin wasn't in the safe. So they thought that proved I had opened the safe." McCauley's voice had gone flat and despairing.

"I see," said Johimy. "But are you positive your wife's pin was in there?"

"Oh, yes. She asked the old man to put it there just after dinner. And he was reading in the study all evening. He wouldn't lie."

Johnny frowned. "Was there money missing too?" "I don't know," McCauley said. "If so, not much. Sometimes the old man hadn't counted." "Why did Christy go downstairs?"

"Possibly something for the baby." McCauley looked desolated. "We couldn't know." "Go on."

"Yes. Now, the old lady said she had heard angry voices, which was what made her wake the old man. Nathaniel said he'd been awake, he'd heard them too. So the theory was that I had opened the safe to get the pin—to sell it for the money in it. Chiisty had discovered me. We'd quarreled. And I'd hit her.

''They conceded that I may not have meant to hit so hard. But I was drunk. I was opening a safe that was not my safe. You see?" "I guess so," Johnny said. "That was all the case there ever was." "But what about this Kate?"

"The testimony on my side wasn't believed," said McCauley patiently. "Oh, Kate went on the stand and told about her pin. That Nathaniel had given it to her. But there was nobody who remembered seeing it in Kate's old box. And then Nathaniel swore that he'd given no pin. He produced the pin." Johnny bhnked. The prisoner talked on. "So they said this was all a preposterous lie to save me. Nathaniel Bartee wouldn't have had any truck with a woman hke Kate, they said. Well, nobody took the word of a 'woman like Kate' against the Bartees. Nobody took the word of a man

like me, either, who had been drunk and with another woman, when he had a wife and child. And Christy,^ who could have told them I had one pin, Christy was dead."

"I see," said Johnny. He thought he saw. This man was crazy. The story had no k)gic. "Where does Dick Bartee come into it?"

"He was supposed to be locked up for the night in that mihtary school. But he could get out. I'd seen him in the Baitee kitchen getting food after many a midnight." Johnny lifted an eyebrow.

"The safe wasn't forced, Mr. Sims. It was opened by someone who knew how. One of the family." Johnny just waited.

"Christy wouldn't have quarreled with a stranger or a burglar. She'd have screamed. So Christy knew whoever it was she found in there, by the open safe." Johnny conceded a thoughtful nod.

"But Cluisty wouldn't have quarreled with Nathaniel, who was fort>'-one years old and the Crown Prince in that house. No more than she would have quarreled with the old man himself. But she certainly would have questioned fifteen-year-old Dick Bartee if she'd found him in his grandfather's stud^ at midnight and the safe open. She'd' have threatened to call out.. He was rough and tough, that kid. He'd have hit her. I've thought about it all so long," said McCauley, "I can't tell you the feel—the fitting down—the choking in."

"And how did Nathaniel get the pin?" snapped Johimy. "Christy^'s pin?" said McCauley. "Dick gave it to him." Johnny found himself shaking his head. "What is this alibi?" he asked, turning to something else for kindness' sake. "Yes. Well the school—that's tlie Brownleaf School—says nobody leaves after lights out. Dick's roommate was a boy named George Rush, who said Dick was there. Edith-Emily tried to talk to him years ago, but he was just a kid and scared and she couldn't approach him in any way that would get him to tell her the truth."

"He lives in Oakland now," said the chaplain, "He has a radio-TV repair shop. If you could get this George Rush to say, without fear or pressure, whether Dick Bartee was really there in his room at the school that night . . ."

"I don't see how any roommate could guarantee . . .'' Johnny felt sorry for both these men.

"He might," said the chaplain. "He might be able to convince us. It's worth trying. If he could, it would settle everything."

"If you can't find him," said McCauley anxiously, "ask Mr. Charles Copeland."

"Copeland, the lawyer? Nan's boss, you mean?"

"Yes. Yes. He knows. He was my sister's lawyer, and he was the go-between. He'll know where Kate is, too. Kate CaUahan—if you wanted to talk to her."

"Go-between whom?" asked Johrmy.

"Between Edith-Emily and the Bartees. He took care of the money."

"What money?"

"The money old man Bartee sent every year for the baby," McCauley said. "The old man insisted when he and Emily made the agreement. He felt responsible, I suppose."

"You mean old Bartee supported Emily?"

"No, no," said McCauley. "Emily never touched it."

''Then where is it now?"

''It's a fund," the prisoner said.

''A fund! For seventeen years!"

"1 think it was five thousand dollars every year," McCauley said. "It belongs to my daughter."

"But ..." Johnny got up. "Look," he said with a bursting feehng. "Emily is gone. What happens about that money? Won't Nan have to know now?"

"Oh, my sister had that all arranged," McCauley said. "Nobody will know where it really came from."

"I went to see Geroge Rush myself, five years ago." said Father Klein, "but he wouldn't talk at all. I approached him directly and it didn't work. I'm afraid I have no guile."

"Too right," muttered Johnny Sims. "No guile." He stared at them.

Then he said abruptly, "111 see what I can do. I'll be in touch. I can call you on the phone. Father Klein?"

Johnny went away.

Five thousand a year for seventeen years, funded, perhaps invested, at least compounded! For heaven's sake, couldn't they see! When Dick Bartee met Nan Padgett and rushed her off her feet tvhUe Emily was out of the way

it might not have been a coincidence at all. It might have been a plan.

Johnny felt very grim and shaken. Lawyer Copeland ought to be shot. Copeland knew. But Copeland had introduced them. Was Copeland in on this?

On what?

CHAPTER 6

JoHisTNY PULLED UP in front of the building where the girls lived, just as another car pulled up ahead of him. Dorothy, then Nan, and finally a big blond man got out. Dorothy saw him first and hurried toward him.

Johnny saw her face and quickly put both arms around her. "Been to see about the funeral," she said miserably against his coat-

"Dick," Nan said, "this is Johnny Sims." Her face was solemn and strained.

Johnny did not shake the blond man's hand because he was holding Dorothy. "Glad to meet you," Johnny said, "although not under these circurhstances. Where's "Ma?"

"Upstairs," murmured Dorothy. "She's been wonder . . .''

Nan broke in. "Jolmny, will you please tell us something?"

Johnny marveled that Nan took the lead. It was usually Dorothy. He braced himself. He knew what was coming.

It crossed his mind that Dick Bartee could have inspired this attacking question. But Bartee was just waiting, just hstening. He was good looking, all right, a man with a stiong animal ptesence. His gray eyes watched, neither warm nor cold.

"The hospital says Aunt Emily called for you last night." Nan's brown eyes were cold. "Why haven't you told us?"

Johnny's arms tightened around Dorothy as his heart jumped. "I was ashamed to tell you," he said flatly, "because I'm sorry—I never did make it."

'DidTi't make iti You mean you didn't go when she asked!" Nan flared.

"I haven't got an excuse, Nan. I am just ashamed," Johnny said. "Only that the doctor and the nurse seemed to think she needed a night of quiet and I guessed this morning would do."

Nan's chin hfted. "I thought you were so fond of Emily." She looked away from him. She started towards the door.

Dorothy was also drawing away from him. He looked down. "I sure wish I had gone," he murmured. Dorothy gave him a troubled, searching look. Then she followed Nan.

Johnny stood beside Dick Bartee. He was out to discover whether this blond man, now looking at him speculatively with those gray eyes, was or was not a wrong one, phony, murderer. Johnny couldn't handicap himself before he started by announcing what he was up to. (Also, he had promised.)

Johrmy said, "What do you make of Emily's reaction to your name?" He made himself look with very blunt curiosity into those eyes.

Bartee smiled. His carved lips drew back from perfect teeth. "Misunderstanding is my guess," he said. "Over a transcontinental telephone, what else can you expect? I don't suppose we'll ever know what she thought Nan had said."

"Too bad," said Johimy Sims. "So you can't imagine what it might be, eh?"

Dick Bartee said easily, "Now see here. I've knocked around the world a bit and you know as well as I do evert/thing I ve done wouldn't necessarily dehght a maiden aunt. There is, just the same, no reason I know why Nan shouldn't marry me." His gaze was perfectly open and direct.

"That's good," said Johnny glumly.

"I never heard of a woman named Emily Padgett," said Bartee, "until I met Nan, of course."

Johimy realized with a tiny shock that if the man was innocent this could be true. I changed all the names—I had to, Emily had said. Johnny turned for the door.

Bartee said, "I never met her. I'm afraid I can't be altogether sorry she's left Nan and me alone in the world together. There's a confession for you."

He clapped Johnny on the back and then he followed Johnny up the stairs.

Johnny went up, seething. Either the man was innocent and super-honest. Or he was bold. He was very bold.

Upstairs Johnny's mother had everything under control. Food was at hand for the condolers who were coming and going. At least four of these were Dorothy's young men. Nan was in the big back room and Bartee went to her. Something about the way she stood then, with the big blond man behind her, where Johnny had so often stood himself, made him feel angry.

In a little while he ambled through the dining room into the kitchen. "Ma, I'm leaving. You O.K.?"

His mother said, "Go about your business, do," She looked sharp. "You were bom with brains, John Sims. Remember?"

"And thanky ma'am," said Johnny. "I try to use them." He knew he'd just been scolded for evasion or, to put it bluntly, lying about having been to see Emily. He couldn't help it.

He went back through the little pantry and there was Dorothy fiercely spreading crackers. Something about the bend of her fair neck made a sudden lump come into Jolmny's throat. "Ah, Dotty," he said, "couldn't you rest?" ^ "No," she s^d belligerently. "I'd rather do something.' "Me too," said Johnny sadly. He wasn't happy with his secret, that alienated him here. "You don't need me, I guess," he said gloomily.

"Nan's all right," she replied distantly. Johrmy went through to the big back room. Nan said, "Wait, we'll come to the door. I want to say something . , ."

So Nan, with Dick Bartee at her back, stood in the little hall and said, "I'm sorry if I sounded too cross dowoistairs, Johnny. Dick says I did."

Johrmy's eyes flicked up to the big man's face. "I only said you undoubtedly felt pretty terrible about not going when Emily called. No use to hit a man when he's down." The big man was smiUng.

'"That's right," stammered Johnny. "I do ... I do feel

pretty terrible." He slid out of the door, got away awkwardly.

"So that's your old boy friend," said Dick Bartee. In the

Httle passageway he put his arms around Nan from behind.

There was a mirror and he looked at her in it. "He never did shake my hand. Notice that?"

"Maybe it is hard for Johnny," Nan said.

"Lost you," he murmured. "Poor guy. It's not easy. Come home to Hestia with me, love? After Monday? On Monday?"

"Oh, I couldn't . . ."

"Yes, you could," he said sofdy. "You could, love." He watched her face in the mirror, saw the sadness changing to the dream.

"Perhaps I could," Nan said. "I've only got you, really. Except Dorothy."

"And I've got you," he murmured. "Let Johnny watch over Dorothy."

Dorothy, bringing a tray of crackers, came by. She heard her cousin Nan saying, "But he never did date Dorothy, you know. Johnny was mine." Dorothy turned around and went back into the kitchen.

"What is it?" said Johnny's mother sharply.

"It just—kind of hit me," said Dorothy thoughtfully. "Nothing is the way it used to be."

There was a George Rush in the Oakland book with two numbers listed, one a radio-TV Repair Shop, the other a residence. Johnny found the shop closed. He drove to the other address. This turned out to be shabby frame house which looked deserted.

The neighbor leaned over his fence. "Looking for Rush? He's gone down to the tavern. Two blocks east."

"Thanks."

"His TV's on the blink. Hee hee. Too lazy to fix his own, I guess. He's gone to catch the ball game. Hee hee."

Johnny perceived that he owed this helpful interference to the humor of it.

Johnny went into the tavern. Fortunately it was still so early in the afternoon that the bar, where the TV hung high, was nearly empty. Johnny had no trouble guessing, by age, which was his man. He took the bar stool next-but-one to the only thirty-ish looking customer.

Johnny intended to use guile. He began to watch the ball game, making sounds from time to time, until the other man through the back of his neck, seemed to accept him for a fellow fan.

"See that!" said Johnny, playing a deep finesse. "Same exact thing happened in a game we played way back in military schoool. St. Olaf's versus Brownleaf."

"St. Olaf's?" The man tmned his head so that for the first time Johnny had a good look at his profile. "That's right. We used to play you."

"Yoti did?"

"Brownleaf."

"Oh, for . . I When were you there?''

"Thirty-nine—forty-two."

"You were ahead of me," said Johimy, "but we lap. Forty— forty-four." (This was a lie.) "You ever know a Dick Bartee at Brownleaf?"

"Did I know him? I only roomed with him."

"Well, smaa-11 world."

They shook hands. Johimy said this called for a drink and he called for one.

"Where'd you run into Dick?" asked the man, who must surely be George Rush. His eyes were red-lined. His face was pale and morose.

"I wish I'd never" said Johimy, with a sudden change of manner.

Rush laughad. "A ring-tailed doozer, that one." He s65med' pleased.

Johnny had his line now. "Listen, if you are a good friend of his, let's drop the subject right now," he said gloomily.

George Rush turned all the way around on his stool (since the game to all intents and piirposes was-over). "We better have another one." The man's red-rimmed eyes half closed. "What did Baitee do to you, stranger?"

"Double-crossing rat," said Johnny. "Got my girl behind my back." It was easy to sound convincing.

"Standard Bartee procedure," said Rush promptly. "Gets away wdth murder, that Baitee. Always did."

Johnny found himself holding his breath.

"Somebody else's girl, that interests him. He was always that way," Rush went on. "You make a kind of rule, Bartee's got to break it or get around it. So he proves something to himself. I dunno." He ran down.

"You know where he is now?" Johnny said bitterly.

"Nope."

"Ill tell you. He's messing around with the vineyard."

''Oh ho! Say, I read that the old man is dead. Well, believe me, Dick will freeze out the whole rest of the family and I don't care who they are. Look at that guy. End up with a million dollar property probably. It'll fall in his lap.

"Probably. Say, remember the murder?"

"What mmder?"

"In the Bartee family? Dick was at Brownleaf then."

"Yeah."

"Somebody got into the safe?"

"Yeah." Rush was closing up.

But Johnny went on. "I'll bet you up to five bucks it was Dick Bartee who got into the family safe that night."

"You knew him that long ago?" said Rush suspiciously.

"I was bom knowing him," said Johnny with gloom. "My mother was a friend of his mother. One of those damn things. The little kiddies should be pals."

Rush laughed. In a moment he asked curiously, "What makes you think Dick opened the safe?"

"I can't prove anything,'' said Johimy challengingly.

Rush turned his glass. "He knew how to get in. That I know," he said with pleasure.

"It figures," Johnny drained his glass. He ordered more. Rush volunteered nothing. "I sure wish I could fix his wagon," Johnny said viciously.

"Don't kid yourself," said Rush bitterly. "Some people are like that. Get away with murder, all their lives."

"You said that before," Johnny looked up—drunkenly, he hoped.

y.K. I said it before."

"You mean . . . murder?"

"Do I?" Rush was smiling a rather nasty smile.

"We had a way of getting out of the school at night," Johnny said in a moment. "And nobody wiser. You probably did too."

"Could be," Rush admitted.

"You think he could have killed that woman?" demanded Johnny.

"What woman?" Rush stalled.

"In the Bartee house."

"If Dick had been there," said George Rush owlishly, "and she crossed him. This is a strictly unsentimental character. Wouldn't bother him, if he had, I'll tell you that." The

man shifted on the bar stool. "I'm just talking. Actually, they got the one who did it."

"Was Bartee out?" said Johnny xurgently.

Rush didn't answar.

"You still afraid you'll be expelled?" sneered Johnny.

Rush said, "For all I know, he was in his bed, like the Colonel said." He raised his glass.

"For all you know," Johnny pounced. "You can't swear ... ?"

"I'm swearing to nothing," said George Rush irritably, "and why don't you give up? Face it, this Bartee, he's got what it takes and poor slobs like you and me, we just haven't got what he's got. Just kiss her good-bye."

Johnny looked at the weak bitter face and wondered. He couldn't help remembering the big blond man smiling, saying the decent thing.

"How old was he? Fifteen? What would he do if he went out? Date? What girls did he know?"

"Try the phone book," said Rush. ''He was six feet already, and big. He dated. He had a car. His father Hed for him. You know that? The school didn't know about his car. That's what I mean, how he always got away with stuff. Catch my old man lying for me."

"Did you lie for him?" Johnny said. -' • '"

George Rush sHd off the stod. '^ope." he said. He swayed a httle. "I Hed for myself," he said. "My old man would have skinned me alive if I'd have been expelled."

Johimy said, "You were out that nightl Wait . , . Listen ..."

"I don't know you," Rush said. "But Dick Bartee, I know. So don't dream, brother." He leaned closer and his breath was bad. "If I could have proved he was out that night, his trouble might have been worth my trouble. See?" He showed his teeth. "Give up—that's my advice." He hiccupped. He went away.

Johimy sat in the bar a while longer. There was something wrong with Bartee's alibi? Or was there? This George Rush was mahcious, envious, about as untrustworthy a witness as Johnny could imagine. One thing he'd said Johnny believed. If Rush could have made trouble for Dick Bartee—seventeen years ago or now—he would have enjoyed it.

CHAPTER 7

Monday, just after noon, they buried Emily Padgett.

After the ceremonies, Johnny followed Charles Copeland out to the curb. The lawyer was putting a slim blonde, sun-tarmed woman into a car. She was rolling her eyes, seeming distressed, saying, "Please, Charles, don't be late tonight. Please?"

"I must go to the oflBce,'' he told her. "Have a good lunch. Forget it."

Johnny said, as he turned, "May I come back to yoiu: oflBce, sir?"

"You're John Sims, aren't you? Sad about Emily. Funerals upset my wife."

"ril follow you, sir.'' The lawyer looked at Johnny's tight face and said no more.

In the o£Bce, the lawyer told his switchboard to hold all calls. "Well?"

"I've been to see Clinton McCauley."

"Ah . . ." The lawyer sagged. His gray hair was a little startling above a sun-browned face. "I've been worrying about that ever since the boat docked. Emily turned to you, then? What does McCauley say?"

"What do you say," asked Johnny, "about this engagement?"

"I am horrified," said Copeland quietly.

"You think Bartee is the killer? You think McCauley is right?"

"No, I do not. But that makes no difference. I am horrified, just the same."

Johnny felt a little surge of confidence in the man. Still, he said severely, "What were you thinking of when you introduced them?"

"I couldn't help that," Copeland said. "I'll tell you about it. Dick Bartee came up one day last fall, to deliver a letter from his grandfather by hand. First time I had met

him. He was pleasant. I was cordial. That was that.

"About two months ago, he popped in again. Wanted advice. What did I know about some business people around this town? While we were talking, right here, Nan Padgett happened to come in with some papers. You know she's in the stenographer's pool, but she is rather my protege. I be-Heve she said, Tou wanted these, Mr. Copeland?' and I said, Thank you, Miss Padgett,' and that was absolutely all that was said. Oh, I suppose Nan smiled, as she naturally would, at the boss' guest. I did not introduce them to each other.

"Well, same day, Bartee asked me to lunch with him. I said I was rushed, but if he didn't mind eating in a hurry at my regular place . . . He said he didn't mind, so we went across the street. Now Nick's is mobbed but I have a table reserved every day, as I think I told him. We started past a long hne of people waiting, and there, wedged in the crowd, were Nan and Dorothy Padgett. Bartee stopped in his tracks. He said something hke, This yoimg lady mustn't starve, must she? Isn't there room for her too?' And before I could open my mouth he'd yanked up the velvet rope and Nan and Dorothy had ducked under, laughing.

"Well, I'm kind of uncle to them, you know. They've eaten at my table often enough. What was I to do? Say 'No, you can't sit at my table today.' Could I explain why not? Could I say, 'Because I don't want you to meet this man.' And could I have said why I didn't? I was stuck, I tell you. It happened so fast. Scattered my wdts. So l just put the best face I could on it. I introduced them and we had lunch, the four of us. Dick Bartee, it seemed to me, wasn't too much impressed. Anyhow, I suppose I assumed he'd go for Dorothy.

"Dorothy?''

"Why, yes. She gets the whistles."

"That's right. I guess she does."

"Nan's a sweet kid," Copeland said, "but Dorothy's a stunner. So we talked about everything but personahties. I saw to that. Then, it was over and everyone parted and I thought that was all. Had no idea he went on seeing Nan. I've been away over a month. Emily was gone, too, or she'd have stopped it. I wouldn't have had it happen."

Johimy chewed his Up.

The lawyer was staring at his polished desk. "Does Mc-Cauley want Nan told now? Does he want me to teli her?"

"What do you think of McCauley?" Johnny asked.

"I know the man's got this obsession . . ."

"Is it just an obsession?''

"I don't know. But if he says. Tell her' I will tell her. Does he say so?"

Johnny said, "Would you tell me about this money first? How much money is coming to Nan?"

"Plenty," Copeland said, and named a sum that made Johnny whistle. "It's supposed to be an inheritance from her dead parents—through Emily, handled by me. AH fixed years ago."

"Then it just comes to her?"

"Yes. At Emily's death. Or Nan reaching twenty-one. Whichever's first. It is hers, right now."

"Do you think Dick Bartee knew about that money?" The lawyer bhnked. "Could he have known?" Johnny pressed.

"The old man was supposed to keep the secret. I'm almost certain that he did."

"Why should Dick Bartee dehver a letter by hand? And what was in the letter? Was Nan's name in there?"

The law)'er stared. "I don't know why he brought it instead of mailing it. I don't think her name was there." The lawyer began to look startled. "I see what you mean. He did . . . yes, he did force that introduction. But the girls being in the restaiu-ant—that was just coincidence."

"Was it?" said Johnny.

"Of course, it . . . Wait a minute. He could have set out to cultivate me. If he knew that Nan worked in my office, he could have figured to find an opportunity to force an introduction, sooner or later, somehow. That's the way your mind's working?"

"I'm wondering," Johrmy admitted.

Copeland sent for the letter that Dick Bartee had de-hvered for his grandfather.

Dear Mr. Copeland: (it went)

Since you tell me Miss McCauley has not spent the the yearly allowance I've sent the child tliese seventeen years, and since you say it now amounts to a sizeable fortune, and since the child, now twenty years of age,

will come into this money in, at the least, another year, and is fully protected in the event of Miss McCauley's death by coming into the money at that time, if necessary—I write to announce that I have sent the last amount I shall send. The child is provided for. I am old. And faihng.

Having, therefore, just drafted what I am quite sure will be my final will, I want you and Miss McCauley to know that neither she nor the child receive any bequest therin, nor are they mentioned therein by any name. This means that upon my death, no one need discover the name Miss McCauley and the child now use. And no one can connect the girl with the terrible and pitiable past.

I believe that my duty in the whole matter has been discharged to Miss McCauley's satisfaction. I will say to you, and to Miss McCauley, whom I admire, that I now agree her course has been most kind and vsdse. I wish the httle girl all happiness.

Yours sincerely, Bartholomew Bartee

'Decent letter," said Johnny. '^And no Padgett named."

Copeland said slowly,. "The information about the money is there, isn't it?"

"Had the letter been tampered with?"

"I can't say." The lawyer thought of something that relaxed him. "But he would have no way to find" out where Nan was or under what name she and Emily were hving."

Johnny said pityingly, "I guess you don't have snooper's blood."

"What do you mean? How could he? There are no records he could get at. I'll swear to that. And I never told him."

"Nobody had to teU hun. There is one person he could locate, all right."

"Whor

"Clinton McCauley.''

"Well . . . yes."

"Emily said she went to see her brother once a month."

"Yes."

"Didn't Emily fight for her brother at the time of that crime? Wasn't she there, in Hestia?"

"Yes, she was."

"So Dick Bartee had seen her? Might know her when he saw her again?" "Possibly."

"What's to stop Dick Bartee from hangnng around watching who visits the prison? He'd certainly have a clue as to what she'd look like. Then, when he spots Emily, following her home? Then he knows where she lives and under what name. Wait a minute. Two girls!" Johnny jerked upright. "How could he know which girl was going to get the money? The names were changed."

The lawyer sat still and closed his eyes. In a moment he opened them and said, "Maybe I can tell you how. Listen. When we had lunch that day I said we talked about impersonal stufiF, One impersonal topic was politics. Dick Bartee said to the girls, 1 don't suppose you pretty young things can vote yet?' "

"And Dorothy said, "I can; she can't.' "And Nan said, 'But in another year, I can.' "So he knew which girl by her age, of course." "Uh huh," said Johnny.

"We will have to tell Nan right away," Copeland said anxiously.

"We haven't got McCauley's permission to tell her yet." "WhatI He's the one who swears Dick Bartee killed his wiiel"

"Now he wants to believe different," Johnny said. "To spare Nan. Not to break her heart. He wants to be shown that he has been wrong."

Copeland stared. "He's been wrong," he said shortly. "I never could believe the boy did it. But what does he mean?" "I'm to check. I've already tested that ahbi." Johnny told about George Rush. "Trouble is," Johnny confessed, "this Rush is very sour on Bartee. Could be just malice. And he won't swear. Doesn't mean much?" He looked at the man of law.

"No," said the lawyer. "Nothing."

"That's why I haven't called Father Klein. I don't have an\'thing either way."

"We are going to have to do something about stopping this marriage," Copeland fumed. "Tell Nan he's after her money."

"\Ve haven't a grain of proof that he is" said Johnny. "Look at the way it seems. Bartee meets you because his grandfather does business with you. He meets Nan through you. He falls for her. That's simple. Easy to grasp. Happens every day. What are we going to tell her? Something complicated. We say Bartee maneuvered the whole thing, ferreted her out, got himself introduced to her, because he knew she had money. Also, when we say he wants her money, we are saying he doesn't want her. And that is something Nan may not want to believe." Johnny knew this with a sickening certainty.

"What are you suggesting?" Copeland said rather angrily.

"I would like the proof" said Johnny. "If Clinton Mc-Cauley is sick and obsessed, I'd hke to be sure of that. And if not, then I'd like to get Bartee for the murder of Christy McCauley, if he did it. And get Nan's father out of prison, by the way. It scarcely seems enough, just to break up a romance. Does it?"

"No," said Copeland. "Not if Bartee is guilty. But even if he isn't guilty of anything but fortune-hunting—I tell you I don't like this marriage."

"If Bartee is a killer and I can prove it, that will stop the marriage,^ut good" Johnny said. "I thought I -could' scavenge around. While there is time. I've done this, although never for real, iii exactly the same way."

"You think you can turn up anything?"

"McCauley wants me to try."

"Let's talk to McCauley."

"O.K. I'll drive you over. Let me call Father Klein."

When Johnny got the chaplain on the Hne, Father Klein broke in. "McCauley is in the infirmary. He's gone about out of his mind. The dilemma . . ."

Johnny stiffened. "What am I going to do, then? I promised to wait for his permission. But a decision, about telling the girl, is going to have to be made pretty soon."

"McCauley does not want her told at all."

"What!"

"Last clear thing he said to me. He realizes that he has judged Dick Bartee without proof. And that is wrong."

"But, listen to mel" Johimy began to explain about the money.

The chaplain was not the man for understanding about money. He broke in. "McCauley said that unless there is courtroom proof . . ."

"He must be out of his mind," snapped Johimy. "Doesn't he claim a court found him guilty?"

"Yes, but he understands , . ."

"Look here, sir. You say he's about out of his mind?"

"The man is trying to beheve what he does not beUeve," said the chaplain severely.

"I have to do something," Johnny said. "Tell me what I am to dol"

The chaplain said, in a moment, "You care for this girl, his daughter? You have her welfare at heart?"

"I do. I have." Johnny's voice began to shake with foreboding.

"Yes, I thought so. I will say this to you. If you ever become personally certain that this man Dick Bartee is a murderer, then feel released from your promise. Make it your responsibility to decide."

"Mine?" said Johnny.

"Mr. Copeland may help you some. But I rather think the dead lady—the girl's aunt—gave it to you."

"I'll—do the best I can," choked Johnny.

He hung up. The lawyer, who had been listening in, said sympathetically, "I'll help you tell her."

But Johnny said angrily, "You heard? McCauley is out of his mind?"

"Yes. Sad."

"Did you hear Father Klein say whether to tell her? Yesterday he thought we must. How long do you think McCauley may have been out of his mind? We don't know, said Johnny. "We are basing an awful lot of theory on that man's integrity. If it weren't for McCauley, would it have crossed our minds that Bartee read a letter? Or plotted to meet Nan? Or any of it?"

"Why don't you—er—hunt around a little?" the lawyer said unhappily. "I guess it's true enough that we can always break her heart another day."

Johnny bought himself two sandwiches and a small carton of milk. He drove to the park where he sat on a bench, ate one-and-a-half sandwiches and fed the other half to some birds. During tliis time he tried not to thinjc at all. At the

end of the time, a sentence came clear and cool into his head, and he knew exactly what he was going to do.

He drove to the fat-walled stucco fortiess where Roderick Grnncs lived.

"I've got an old murder case," Johnny told him, "that I am going to dig into for reasons of my own. I don't ask you to take an interest at all but I do a.sk you this: Would you be willing to say, to anyone who inquires, that I'm working on it for you?"

Roderick Grimes took him by his lapels. "Come in here. If you think you are going to say no more—Sit down. Expound."

Johnny sat down. "You can't use this," he warned. "Or even talk about it. I'll have to have your word. Any decision to talk has to be mine." Mine, his heart echoed.

"Granted."

So Johnny expounded.

"You're right," Grimes said at the end. "It's possible, and even probable, that this McCauley is slightly off his rocker. A guilty man who has made up a fantasy to bury the guilt under. Either so that he can see himself as a noble martyr, or because this makes the punishment he desperately needs all the more Qjuel." -'•

John nodded unhappily.

"On the other hand, your Dick Bartee sounds like—what was that phrase?—a ring-tailed doozer, all right. According to Rush."

"Yeah," said Johnny miserably.

"I'll back you up," said Grimes. "I'll even—No, I won't either. I was going to say I might even come down and throw my weight around. But I can't ofiFer. Know why?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm the armchair type," said Grimes, "creaking back, neither young nor spry, nor foolish. All's safe enough, if McCauley's a psycho. But hasn't it occurred to you that Dick Bartee, if he's a killer, may not sit still while you snoop among his Httle secrets?"

"He's not going to murder me" scoffed Johnny.

"My boy," said Roderick Grimes quaintly, "you could be murdered and you'd never know it. Well, report to me, mind. Of course, if I can't use it, I won't pay you."

"I realize that," Johnny grinned.

"Meanwhile," promised Roderick Grimes, "I'll do you another favor. I will sit here and think about it." Johnny felt comforted, somehow.

CHAPTERS

Johnny spent the rest of the day hunting old newspapers and magazine indices for accounts of the murder of Christy McCauley, in Hestia, Cahfomia, seventeen years ago. A no-good, drunken, womanizing bum had killed his young wife. Only the prominence of the Bartee family gave the stale plot much news value. Nothing new.

He walked into his parents' house about eight o'clock in the evening and was shocked stock-still on the carpet by the sight of his father at the card table, playing a placid game of Russian Bank with a pretty girl named Dorothy Padgett.

"Where's Nan?" Johnny said.

Dorothy turned her head and smiled. "Surprisel" she said. "Your dear mama said I must come . . ."

"She certainly mustn't stay alone," said Barbara Sims, busthng in.

"Where's Nan?" Johnny repeated. His feet had not moved another inch.

"Oh, she flew home with Dick," said Dorothy cheerfully. "He had to go back and he didn't want to leave her and she's never met his folks, you know. He thought it would be good for her to get away."

"So I brought Dorothy home with me, of course," said his mother. "Where have you been all day? Have you had any food?"

"You say they flew?" Johnny almost could not get his next

words out. "You don't think they went by way of Nevada?"

Dorothy looked shocked. His mother said reproachfully,

"You can't think Nan would elopel The day Emily was

buried? Nan wouldn't do that."

Dorotliy said, "At least, she didn't. She called me and they're safe on the ground in Hestia." She watched him.

Johnny sat limply down. Maybe there wasn't as much time as he'd thought there would be. He was scared.

"Have they ... set a date?" he asked painfully, looking at nothing but his mother's carpet.

"I'll be in charge of the wedding," Dorothy said, "whenever it is."

"When will it be?" he insisted.

"Oh, I suppose soon. Nan won't want anything but a very simple wedding. No splash. Because of Emily . . ."

"Simple and soon, huh?" he murmured.

Dorothy turned and cards fell out of the pattern on the table and landed on the floor. "What's the matter, Johrmy?"

Johnny's father began patiently to pick up the cards.

"I've been with Roderick Grimes," said Johnny, "and he gave me a job."

"Well?" said his mother impatiently. "You know, Johnny, you are going to have to get used to the idea that Nan w going to marry this man."

Johnny's gi-een eyes flickered at her. "Grimes wants me to dig up the dope on another old case. Happened years.^go.-In Hestia." ^

"For goodness sakesl"'his mother said.

His father stopped shuffling cards.

"A young woman named Christy McCauley was hit on the head one night—in the Barter's house."

He heard them gasp.

"Her husband's in prison for doing the deed," Johnny tried to be Hght, "but Grimes thinks—oh, you know, the usual. More to it than meets the eye."

"Johnny, you can't do this," his mother said.

"Yes, I can, Ma," he replied gravely. "If I don't, somebody else will."

"You should let somebody else, then," his mother said severely. "You, of all people, as close as you've been to Nan, can't go down there and bother those Bartees about an old tragic thing they'd surely rather forget."

Dorothy had been sitting very still indeed. She said, "Was the murdered woman related to Dick?"

"No, not directly. She was related to old Mrs. Bartee."

"Is old Mrs. Bartee still alive?" asked his mother.

''Yes she is," said Dorothy. "Did "Then, Johnny, you absolutely cam But Dorothy said, "You don't wani family, do you, Johnny?''

He opened his mouth, took air, do She said briskly, "How and when a "Driving. In the morning." "I'U go, too.''

Johnny didn't know what to say. "What's going on?" said Barbara Si Dorothy leaned forward. "It's jus all know that you did go to see At least I know it, and I think your worried about this old murder ca: didn't want Nan mixed up with tha the matter?"

Johnny felt the red in his face. ] "I guess," he said, "this is what yc tuition."

"You may as well give up," his J deal out a solitaire game.

"All right. O.K. I'll admit I took rights of it."

"In what way?" his mother frowne Johnny searched for a stout lie t< mother's intuition. "There's an idea, tee family kinda drove this poor hu way they froze him out. I mean, il pie . .."

"Ummm," said his mother. "It's tn thing about them, do we?" "It's too late." said Dorothv.

He rose.

"That's awful early for you, Dotty," he wen "Maybe you could write Nan and fix it up to g day or so?"

Dorothy was looking up at him. She said rather go with you, Johnny." The phrase rockec was an echo in it somewhere.

His mother said, "Dorothy, you go right si this minute. I'll pack for you."

The women scurried.

"Do you give up?" his father said to John] stood there. Johnny rubbed his head.

There must be such a thing as male intuitior later. Because his father said to him quietly, step, son."

In the old frame house that stood, smothere< big trees for miles around, the nurse was he] lady to bed in the front room downstairs.

"Such a s^veet little girl, isn't she, Mrs. BarteCi

The old lady's teeth were in the glass and she to smile. She mumbled through her soft old li mire to have a young and pretty face in the he did. There was Josephine. There was Christy."

"And Miz Bianche."

(The old lady didn't - include Miz Blanche.] is Nan. Nan. It doesn't suit her."

"Short names are all the rage," the nurse said.

In the huge parlor, the other side of tf Blanche Bartee said to her husband Bartholc can't im.agine Dick married to that child. And I can't imagine . . ."

"You don't think he's changed? You don't think he's settled? Dick makes you nervous?"

The bracelets were still. "No, no," she murmured nervously.

Upstairs in the hall, at the door of the big back bedroom, Dick said to his fiancee, "You're tired. Been a long bad day. Sleep well."

"I think I will sleep," Nan said. "I feel at home here. Isn't that strange?"

"No."

"Why not?" Nan spoke dreamily.

"Because wherever I am is your home, love." He was murmuring. "Marry me. Why must we wait?"

"Just a httle while," Nan said. "Not too long, darling."

Dorothy wasn't a chatterer today. Mile after mile slipped undre the car's wheels in the misty morning and she asked no questions, either. But she was a presence. Johnny couldn't forget that she was there. Finally he said, "What will you do if the Bartees won't take you in?"

"I'll stay in a motel."

Something about this stubbornness pleased him. "Then maybe you don't think it's too late."

"It's late," she said.

"What do you think of Dick Bartee?"

"I think he's—been around."

"Is he really in love with Nan?"

"Shes in love," Dorothy said crisply. "He gave her an awful rush. She was too used to you, Johnny."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh ... I don't know. He's too old for Nan."

"Thirty-two. I'm twenty-eight, of course."

"You're too old for her, too," said Dorothy tartly.

Johnny looked sideways. "You're on the warpath," he said.

"Oh, Johnny, don't—"

"Don't what?"

"Don't go round the mulberry bush. And don't ever take a he-detector test, either."

;'Whatl"

"How do you suppose I knew you were lying about not seeing Emily?" Johnny remembered her head on his breast when his heart had jumped. Dorothy now put her cool

fingers gently on his wrist. "You just made up this job with Roderick Griines. Didn't you?"

He knew his heart jumped again. He took his hand off the wheel, turned it, and put her hand away. "I've got the job," he said sternly. "And none of your tricks."

She was contrite. "All right, Johnny. Don't tell me anything more, if you don't want to."

"Oh I want to," he said in a moment. "We're on the same side. Maybe I need you."

"Maybe," she murmured. Her head was turned away.

"This Christy McCauley was twenty-two years old," Johnny began. "She got killed by a blow, and her husband was caught with the weapon in his hand. I talked to him in prison."

"Oh?"

"I think ni have to tell you this," Johnny went on judiciously. "He thinks Dick Bartee did it."

"I see," said Dorothy at last. "So that's it." She straightened. "Did Emily know that? How could she know that?"

"Don't know," he said quickly. "She wanted me to—try and find out—"

"Why didn't you tell us?" Dorothy denianded.

"Because look, Dot—there's a good possibility this^manr McCauley, may be just psycho. There's no real reason to be-Heve what he says."

"You should have told us," Dorothy said stonily.

"I . . . What about Nanr

"What about her?" said Dorothy. If anybody^ thought my fiance had ever killed anybody, Vd want to know about it."

Johnny winced. But he could not tell her any more. He could not tell her who Nan was. He had promised.

Dorothy said, "I don't see what you think you're going to do. The Bartees aren't going to break down and tell you a lot of stuff that never came out before. Dick isn't going to admit it, if he ever killed anybody. You'll have to tell Nan the whole business, Johnny, because that is all you will be able to do."

Johnny said angrily, "I am not going to tell her unless I've got a lot more reason to think there's something to it. And you're not going to tell her imtil I say so."

Dorothy said nothing,

"Promise me that, Dot, or I'll—"

'^ouni what?'' she asked coolly.

They drove in silence a mile or two.

Johnny said at last, "Well, what are we going to do? In your independent judgment." He smiled at her. "You've got rights, Dot. I'm sorry."

She said, siuprising him, "I can see how hard it is—for you. You are going to look pretty jealous and mean, aren't you?"

"That's right," he said grimly, in a moment.

"How long ago wa5 this murder?" she asked.

"Seventeen years," he snapped. Dorothy had made him smart and sting.

"But Dick was just a kidi"

"Fifteen years old."

"But that's impossible!"

"Nope, not impossible. I haven't told you about another talk I had . . ." So now he gave her the George Rush eye-view of Dick Bartee.

"Anything else you haven't told me?" she asked him mildly when he had finished.

He reflected. Couldn't talk about the money. That would come too close to connecting Nan with the Bartees. He said, "Something else, one way or the other, is what I'm after."

Dorothy was silent a long time. Then she said, "I wonder why you don't trust me."

"I still don't know what you're going to do," he said in exasperation. "Look, if I were positive . . . but I'm not. Dotty. I just don't know. I want to protect Nan from any kind of hurt, and it's hard for me. You're right, I'm going to look jealous and mean if I tell all this. Yet I've got to know. Why can't you see that?"

"I see that," said Dorothy in a moment, gravely. "I'll be quiet, Johnny. Not that I agree, but because I'd be a fool to do what you don't want me to do, when I know there's something more you haven't told me."

He didn't speak.

"I will trust you,'' she said. "I know you always have looked out for Nan."

He felt relieved. He picked up her left hand. He wanted to make her know he was grateful, so he started to raise it to his hps. Dorothy snatched it away. "The Bartees might

throw you out," she said brightly, "but if they let me in, I'll be your inside spy."

"It's not a very pretty job," he said ruefully.

"What do we care about that," she said, "if Nan's engaged to a murderer?"

He couldn't answer.

Five times it was on the end of Johnny's tongue to tell her the rest of it. Five times he stopped before he told.

Aunt Emily's face. There goes the meaning of my life. The face of McCauley. // I have been wrong, I pray the Lord. Dick Bartee's face. No reason that I know . . . The old man's letter, kind and wise . . . the little girl all happiness.

Who was Johnny Sims to decide against them all?

CHAPTER 9

It was alm«st five o'clock in the afternoon by the time they turned into a road that ran between vast flats of what seemed to be pure sand. Johnny had seen this country when rows of twisted sticks stretched across as desolate and unproductive-looking a landscape, as one would see this side of the moon. At this season the sticks were hidden in green.

This private road, thought Johnny, was the 'long, long driveway' that Chnton McCauley had walked on a midnight, long years ago. It made a loop around a knoll with a tuft of trees upon it that stood up like a hairy wart on the smooth face of the land. Johnny noted another road leading away to the back.

He took the narrow tum-o£F into the thicket of trees that curved up to the door of a huge wooden house of Victorian design which was painted, gingerbread and all, a soft pale piuplish color. The efiPect was rather pleasing.

They parked and went up the steps. Double wooden doors with old-fashioned etched glass in their upper portions. The doors to which Clinton McCauley had fitted his key? Johnny punched a bell-button,

A neat maid opened the doors. Dorothy asked for Nan. They were let in.

They stepped upon a red carpet. Surely, thought Johnny, not the same red carpet upon which Clinton McCauley had found the candlestick lying. But, if not, it was a replacement that repeated. There was a lot of red carpet. The hall was fifteen feet wide and it went far and deep into the old mansion. He thought he could tell, by an alteration in the hght, where the stairs went up, on the left, about half-way back.

To their inmiediate right, an arch was shut off by two tightly closed sliding doors. To their left an arch had no doors at aU and from this room, as if she came around tlie comer somehow, Nan appeared.

She moved hghtly. Johnny saw that she had regained that dancing air, the effect of some inner joy that he, J. Sims might have to destroy. Behind her loomed Dick Bartee, the tall blond man, easy in his own place, not a type who showed surprise. Then the two girls were exchanging httle jabberings of surprise and explanation.

Johnny said to Dick in the proper undertone, "I wonder if I could wash?"

Bartee nodded. ''Under the stairs. Just go on down the haU."

So Johnny set off upon the red carpet. He knew very well that he might not be within these walls but this once, and he wanted to look at the study. It lay across from the bottom of the stairs that wound up in a square pattern to the left. Johnny went into the little lavatory, remained a judicious time. When he opened its door he did not step out. He stood and inspected, across the fifteen feet of the hall, the old man's study where Christy McCauley had been beaten to death with an iron candlestick seventeen years ago.

The small square room was wide open. Sliding doors here, too, but not shut. There was a mantel piece diiectly opposite, in the outside wall. There were glass-covered bookcases, a hbrary table. The safe, he thought, was probably behind the picture, a rustic scene that hung over the mantel. At least he couldn't spot it, elsewhere. Then, with shock, his exploring eyes perceived that he was being watched by a lizard gaze from the wrinkled old face of an ancient woman in a wheel chair.

Johnny was nobody to skulk sheepishly away. He moved out of the lavatory, closed its door, marched across the red carpet, entered the study. "Ma'am," he addressed her, "my name is John Sims. I am a friend of Nan Padgett."

The old lady regarded him with some interest.

"How do you do?" he said.

"They haven't come to take me to my tea," she said. "So I don't do very well."

"Then I'll take you," he said, "if youll tell me where."

The old lady let out a rusty chuckle. "To the parlor," she said. "I want my tea."

Johnny saw how to release the brake on the wheelchair. Then he got behind it and pushed it out into the hall. He turned to his left and the old lady did not object. So Johnny pushed on towards the front doors and then he turned her into the big room from which Nan had come.

"Motherl" said a man's voice. "Oh, I see!"

The old lady was chortling witii delight. "Young man's name is John Sims," she said triumphantly. "Well? Tea?"

The man who had spoken held out his hand. "Thanks for bringing my mother in, Mr. Sims," he said pleasantly. "I'm Bart Bartee."

A thin worft^n with bronze hair, a sharp prow of a nose and a small chin hurried to take his place at the pushing-bar of the chair. "I'm Blanche Bartee. You surprised us."

"Surprised you, didn't I?" said the old lady with relish. "Miss Adams makes me wait." .

"No reason why you should wait," said Blanche soothingly. She pushed tlie old lady to a position down the huge room.

"I should think not. In my house," the old lady said.

Bart spoke. "Come in. Come in. Sit down. Mother has tea, but the rest of us have something a little more stimulating. Join us?"

"Thanks."

Then Johnny was seated with a glass in his hand and he was assembling his impressions. The big room was charming. The furnishings were old but stately and attractively well cared for. It was the room of a moneyed family, who did not need nor wish to be up-to-the-minute in fashion. The things they'd had for years were precious and significant. He was within the stronghold of the Bartees. Young Bart

was master here. His wife was not the mistress. The old lady was the mistress of the house.

A woman in a white uniform came pushing a teacart, apologizing. The old lady nibbled and sipped and twinkled at Johnny. He seemed to have taken her fancy.

Bart, Jr., was a man about forty, Johnny surmised. Not tall, not big, but well made. He had an air of competent authority. Blanche's age he could not guess, except that she was not a young girl and not an old lady. She struggled to say what a gracious hostess ought to say while the old lady waited to pounce rudely. Johnny could sense strain.

Blanche was saying now, to Dorothy, "You must stay with us, of course. There is plenty of room."

"Who is she?" said the old lady crossly.

"I am Dorothy Padgett, Nan's cousin," said Dorothy promptly. "I should have phoned, I know, but I caught a ride with Johnny at the last minute. It's very kind of you," said Dorothy directly to the old lady, "to ask me to stay."

The old lady nodded. "Not at all," she said, looking pleased with herself.

Dorothy sent a smile of apology to Blanche, who merely looked patient. Bart was watching Dorothy with pleasure— and, perhaps, surprise.

"How nice," said Blanche to Johnny, "that business brought you down."

"I'd better tell you what my business is." Johnny put the glass, whose contents he had not tasted, cai-efully down on the little table beside his chair.

"Matter of fact," interrupted Dick Bartee, "it is a good thing you two are here. There may be a wedding soon. You'll want to attend." He cast a lover's look at Nan, beside liim. Nan was demure, tucked in, belonging.

"Nan isn't," said Dorothy, "going to get married without me around. We are all the Padgetts left."

Blanche began to make sympathetic sounds. It was all pleasant, poHte, genteel. And Johnny was here to destroy this mood.

He broke in again as soon as he could. "Have you ever heard of Roderick Grimes?"

Blanche's face, a paler bronze than her hair, put on a frown. "It does sound familiar."

"He writes books," Johnny told them.

"That's right, he does," said Dick. "About murder."

The Bartee heads turned. Johnny knew one word had destroyed the mood.

"Right. I do some leg-work for him on occasion. He's given me a chore, this time, that brought me here. I am to talk to a few people about the McCauley case."

Johnny heard Blanche's breath catch. If Bart's smooth face gave any sign, Johnny missed it. He was noticing the twitch of Dick Bartee's full mouth. The glance of those gray eyes seemed to rest on Johnny's face, not probing, but coolly resting.

"You can't mean Christy!" said Blanche with dismay.

"I'm afraid I do, Mrs. Bartee," said Johnny. "You see, Grimes ..."

"I know about him. He v^rites up those things," said Dick in a pleasantly informative voice. "Puts them in books."

Nan said from her snug place next to Dick, "Who is Christy?"

"Christy McCauley," said the old lady. Crumbs fell from the comer of her mouth. "Poor Christy McCauley."

"Christy," said Blanche in an aside to Nan, "was Mother Bartee's granddaughter." -"•

"Nelly's little girl," said the old lady. "My only daughter's only daughter, I used to say."

Blanche looked at her vdth alarm. Johnny thought he could read the thought in her bronze head. The old lady ought to be gotten out of the room. It was so vjvid an impression that Johnny found himself waiting for this to be ac-comphshed.

But Bart said sharply, "This man Grimes wants to write up that story?"

"It depends on what I can report to him," said Johnny. "He is interested in old cases that lend themselves to his kind of recapitulation."

"And what is that?" asked Bart sternly.

Johnny said gently, "If it makes an interesting story, sir."

"I don't think," said Blanche, "that it is anything we want at all. How can he do this without having consulted the— the family?" Blanche flicked a nervous look at the old lady who, still as a lizard, was watching her balefully.

Dick said, "It was news. As such, I guess it belongs to the pubhc. Am I right, John?"

He was easy. He spoke sensibly. Johnny thought that if he had killed Christy McCauley, this was as nerveless a killer as ever was.

Johnny said, "Whatever wasn't in the newspapers. Grimes handles very carefully." He took up the glass. It had become a kind of symbol. If they reacted with any kind of permission, Johnny would become their guest. Then he could drink it.

Nan said wonderingly to Dorothy, "Did you know about this?"

Dorothy said softly, "It's just Johnny's job." "Do you propose to talk to us?" asked Bart. "I had hoped to." The drink remained untouched. "About Christyl" Blanche ran her tongue along her lip. "You don't seem to reahze, Mr. Sims, just what you are asking. You came here . . /'

Nan looked from face to face. Bart exuded silent chill. Johnny put his drink down again. "I beg your pardon," he said, "if I have seemed to come into the house under false pretenses. It is just a job I have to do." He got up. "I'll say good-night then."

Nan said, "Oh," as if to protest something, but not sure what.

"Where's he going?" the old lady said. "He hasn't had his tea. Did you know Christy, young man?"

"No, ma'am," said Johnny gently. "I only wanted to know about her."

"Then sit down," she said. "I'll tell you about her." "Mother," said Blanche.

"Oh, be still," said the old lady promptly. It was obvious that she liked to be opposed to Blanche. "I haven't thought of Christy . . . Yes, I did. I thought of Christy only last night. Poor child. She was killed in this house." Her face had no horror in it. Not any more, at least. "Right here in this house," she said.

"I know," said Johnny swiftly. He could teU that Nan shrank closer to Dick. He could tell that Blanche was sending eye-beams to her husband. Blanche twisted her hands. Dick Bartee neither moved nor spoke.

"It was that husband of hers that did it," said the old lady vigorously, "That awful man. I never liked him, from the first. I said to Bart—my husband, I mean—that I

couldn't think of letting Christy go oflF with that awful man. And Nathaniel agreed with me." Her head nodded. The soft flesh of her face shook.

"What was wrong with him?" Johnny asked.

Dick Bartee sat quietly. But he was alert, Johnny thought. Perhaps he always was. Perhaps he had the animal quality of alertness to danger at all times.

"Oh, that McCauley was a drunkard, you know," said the old lady, "and he was always out 'til all hours of the night, drinking, you know. And then he used to see that dreadful woman. He wasn't the kind of man for Christy at all."

Bart spoke. "Mother, do you realize this man wants material for a book?"

"A book about ChristyP The old lady's face Ht. "Well, somebody should put in a book how sweet and pretty she was and what that awful man did to her." The old lady was waxing garrulous. "I remember all about it and, if he wants to know, I am the one to tell him. Not another one of you was here."

"I wish you would tell me," Johnny dared murmur.

Blanche said, in a kind of moan, "Bart, please dori't let^ her ..."-•

"Let me?" The old lady bristled. "Christy was my granddaughter. Not another one of you is related to her. You come over here. What's your name, young man?"

Dick Bartee said mildly, ''He's going to get all this somewhere, Blanche. Let Grandma have the fun." He put his arm around Nan where they sat, side by side, and seemed to work himself more comfortably into the upholstery. Nan looked into his face with trust and pleasure.

Johnny moved to another chair.

The old lady began to talk. The past was far more vivid to her than the present. She was enjoying this. "Christy was a dear, dear girl, you see, and we all loved her. But when that man came, he was so surly about everything. He behaved so badly. Well, we had gone to bed, you see, and I woke. I could hear them quarreling. Downstairs. Christy and Clinton. I could hear him growling and muttering. I woke my husband. By the time he was fully awake the voices had stopped. But I made him get up. Bart had a gun and he took that . . ."

"Why?" said Johnny.

''Why? Why, because there were people quarrelmg."

"A man and his wife?"

"It was the middle of the night," she said. "And Bart was quite right to take the gun. Youll see. He went down and there she was. That McCauley—Clinton was his name— I never hked him. He had hit her with a big heavy candlestick. Oh, it was wicked! And he was drunk. He had opened the safe. He had stolen her pretty pin. He was a wicked man I"

"The pins had been yours, ma'am?" asked Johnny.

"Yes, Francis gave them to me before we were married and that was surely a long time ago. I haven't thought of Frank—"

"Your first husband?"

"Yes. He was my first husband."

"And you gave the other pin to your stepson Nathaniel?"

"To Josephine. Nathaniel didn't realize . . ."

"Reahze what, ma'am?"

The old lady's face sagged. Her lids drooped. She seemed to have suddenly gone to sleep.

"What are you trying to do, Sims?" said Bart quietly. "It was all gone into thoroughly at the time. As you should know. You've evidently read up on it. I think you've got what you came for, haven't you? Thanks to my seventy-nine-year-old mother." His voice was cold.

"I'm tired," said the old lady crossly.

"Of course you are," said Blanche and sprang up to the handles of the chair.

Nathaniel didn't reahze," Johnny said, rising, "but you ... ?"

"I understood," the old lady said, openiag her eyes. "You come see me again, young man."

"I wiU."

Blanche's eyes said to him hostilely, No, yoti wont.

"Realize?" said Bart, after they had gone. "What was thatr

Johnny answered honestly, "I don't know."

"Tricks?"

The room was silent. Nan's eyes were round. "Years ago," said Dick to her comfortingly.

"But, really?" Nan said. "Killed in this house?"

"Poor Christy McCauley," Dick said. "I barely remember her."

Bart rose. "I don't like puzzles and tricks. I don't think you can expect any more, Sims."

Johnny rose also. "No, not here, sir."

"You are going to poke around this town?" Bart's voice was light, yet hostile.

"Yes, sir."

Dick had risen too. Nan said nervously, "Johnny, do you have to do this? If—if Bart doesn't want you to . . . and Blanche doesn't . . . ?"

Johnny said, "It's my job.''

"But, I told them you were a friend."

"I'm that, too," Johnny said with a grin. "I understand," he said to Bart, "better than you think I do. I've done such jobs before."

Bart gave him a crisp nod of dismissal.

"Good-night, Nan."

Nan's lips were pouting disapproval and did not say good-night.

Dick said, in a friendly way, "I'll see you to the door."

So they went together out into the red-floored hall and Dick opened a leaf of the front door. He stepped outside,^ himself, and JoJinny followed.

"Are you really going to stir up this old dust?" Dick asked him.

The hght was going and, with the trees so close, the porch was dim,

"A job," said Johnny. "I m supposed to talk- to people, get the local color, atmosphere, all that."

"I suppose you've heard," Dick said, "that there once was a flurry of suspicion that I had killed Christy McCauley? Or haven't you heard that?"

"I've heard that," Johnny said quietly.

"From McCauley himself?"

"No. Grimes told me." Johnny hed. His heart raced. He had almost made the mistake of admitting he'd seen Mcr-Cauley. This man would then know—or would he?—that Johnny must have foimd out from McCauley who Nan was.

"Going to see McCauley, I suppose?" Dick asked. "Strange to think that he is still alive."

"After I'm through here," Johnny said. (His thoughts raced. Was the man probing?) "I understand he's sick, right now. In the prison hospital," Johnny said carelessly.

The man beside him was looking oflF into the trees. "Are you thinking," said Dick in a moment, "that Nan ought to know about those suspicions of me?"

"What do you think?" said Johnny stiflfly.

There was a little silence. "They wouldn't make an awfully pleasant wedding present," Dick said softly.

"No." Johnny's head jerked up. "I agree with you on that.''

"It was all checked into at the time, you know."

^I presumed so," Johnny shrugged.

"But youTl check again?"

"I've already checked, a little. I saw George Rush."

"ReaUy? Old George? How is he?"

"He's fine. He—was out that night."

"I know." Bartee looked away. "Of course, I understand ^ you," he said.

"Understand?" Johnny's reason sank under the flooding of emotion.

"I got your girl, eh?" said Dick. "Well, have a go at it. I don't suppose I can stop you." The man was smiling.

Johnny conquered anger because one shouldn't be angry at what was true. He said, "Did ycni think McCauley was a no-good bum?"

"That was the consensus around here,'' said Dick. "I was just a kid." Then he added. "You put me in a spot. I don't know what to do."

yodor

"About telling Nan." The eyes came back. In the dusk Johnny seemed to feel them resting on him. "I suppose I must."

"WTiy don't you wait?" said Johnny, feeling sudden dismay. He made himself smile. "/ won't tell her, if I don't have to. I can probably make it sound too dull for Grimes."

"It is quite dull, as a matter of fact," said Dick Bartee in a moment. He sighed. "Maybe I've got you wrong. Maybe I do you an injustice."

"Injustice?"

"Nan's told me all about you. Tve been assuming you— resent me."

"Naturally," said Johnny with his best rueful grin. "I resent you."

The gray eyes smiled back. "Well, good hunting." Dick Bartee held out his hand. "Convince yourself."

Johnny took it. Couldn't stand on niceties. (He could hear Dorothy saying, "What do they matter, if Nan's engaged to a murderer?")

He heard himself say, "Thanks a lot," in a voice that sounded weak and confused. Then Johnny set out in his car, tr>ing to think.

The old lady. Maybe Clinton McCauley was an awful man who only dreamed that he was a saint. Maybe Dick Bartee was a killer and a fortune-himter. Maybe not.

The man had charm. He seemed straightforward. Johnny tried to imagine what he, himself, would say if he were Dick Bartee and innocent. It came out a lot like Dick Bartee.

He drove in and found a room at the first motel he came upon. Responsibihty and doubt were hanging heavily upon him.

What was it that Nathaniel Bartee had not realized? What was it Dick Bartee admitted when he said he knew that George Rush had been out? Why was Blanche Bartee so very eager to stop Johnny's inquiries?

How could he, J. Sims, discover the truth about a kijing seventeen yeaii old? How objectively could he judge? And by what right?

CHAPTER 10

In the parlor, Bart said, ''I wonder why my father took his gun that night. Do you know I never questioned that before?"

"If someone were in the house," began Dorothy.

Bart said, "If my mother woke him to say she heard Christy and Clint—The point is, Miss Dorothy, Clinton McCauley lived in the house."

"Oh?"

"I'm just ashamed of Johimy," Nan said in a low voice. "I'm awfully sorry, Mr. Bartee."

Dorothy said, "Probably Johnny thinks he can—well, protect everyone."

She faltered and looked up. Bart's smooth face was turned upon her. "Perhaps that's it," he said.

Blanche hustled in. She wore very high heels. Her legs were thin and sinewy, not pretty. "Has he gone?" she asked. "Bart, can't you stop this?"

Bart said, "No, I don't think so," not vehemently, but thoughtfully. Blanche, looking troubled, said no more. Dorothy perceived that Bart was the head of this house.

There was dinner. There was the evening. Dorothy was the gay girl guest. Dick was the happy lover. Nan the petted bride-to-be. Nothing was said about murder.

Finally, Dorothy and Nan were alone in the big back bedroom.

"Isn't it heavenly here?" Nan said. "Don't you like them?"

"Very nice." Dorothy began to whack light into her hair with the stiff brush.

"I'm glad you came. But I wish to goodness Johnny hadn't talked the way he did."

"A job," murmured Dorothy.

"I don't believe it," Nan cried suddenly. "I suppose he thinks / shouldn't be in a house where they once had a murder. As if it had anything to do with me." She shook her head as if to shake this ofiF. "Isn't old Mrs. Bartee cute. Dotty?" Nan hugged her knees. "Blanche is so nice. Dick's Uncle Bart is just a lamb."

Dorothy whacked with the brush. (But a man who lets his mother persecute his wife, she thought, is no lamb. No use for her to speak flash judgments about the Bartees. Nan was in the dream. These were going to be her people. She had dreamed they would be wonderful and so she saw them, in the dream.)

"What's this about a wedding?" she asked.

''0h, Blanche just insists we have it here." "I think a bride should be married in her own place," said Dorothy slowly.

"Oh, now, Dotty, don't be ofiFended. It won't be much of a fuss. Only the family. Very quiet." Nan squinned. "Dot . . . ?" "Yes?" ^Couldn't you do something about Johnny?"

"Me?"

"^Vell, you always liked him.''

(Johnny's for me? thought Dorothy. Now that you don't want him any more. Now that I don't have to let you have him, because he really was the only beau you had.) Dorothy bent her blonde head, and brushed the back of it violently upwards.

She heard Nan say shyly, dreamily, "Dick and I had our blood tests made this morning."

"This momingi"

"He said we might as well get that out of the way. You have to do it before you can get a marriage license.''

"I know," said Dorothy numbly. Then she pushed all her hair back with both hands. "Don't rush, hon," she pleaded.

"Tm not," said Nan rebeUiously.

"What are you going to wear?" said Dorothy with inspiration. And saw Nan's face change. "That'll take time,'' pronounced Dorothy grimly.

Lying abed in the dark, Dorothy felt twenty years older than her little cousin. It wasn't fair to be angry with Nan, when Nan hadn't been told what she ought to know. It wasn't kind to break the dream, but it wasn't kind to jtoave her in it, eithef! Dorothy did not believe that Dick Bartee had ever killed anyone. "But there were other things about i him . . .

Next morning, Johnny Sims was talking to a country lawyer named Marshall who had defended Clinton McCauley, seventeen years ago.

"I think I mishandled the business of those pins,'' the man said. "Grimes is going to write it up, eh? From what point of view?"

"I don't know yet," Johnny said. "McCauley says he is innocent."

"Maybe he is," the lawyer sighed. "Maybe he is. At least, I'm convinced that Kate Callahan had one of the pins, all right."

"How come you couldn't make the jury believe that?"

"Because I was a fool."

"How so, sir?" Johnny asked gently. The man before him had a head of hair that was streaked and rusty red and white. The flesh of his face hung in heavy folds. His hands were square, wide palms, short fingers.

''Well,'' the lawyer leaned back, "Kate Callahan convinced me that Nathaniel Bartee had given her a pin. I was surprised. You'd have thought the sight of a woman like Kate Callahan, in full health, would have withered Nathaniel. Well, I thought I was being foxy. I went to the Bartees about Kate's pin.'' "Whyr

'Well, I was going to make a kind of deal. I knew the family might fight admitting that Nathaniel had ever been— less than a Bartee ought to be. So I figured that rather than let the story about Nathaniel and Kate get out—when they realized the pin in his pocket was no evidence against McCauley, they'd be for truth and justice. I wanted the family on McCauley's side. I was going to propose that Kate's possession of that pin would not be explained or we could hint at some other explanation. Something like that. And they would stick up for McCauley, which would have mattered. So there I went, mealymouthed, doing them a favor. And I ran into a thorn bush." ''How so?"

"Saw Nathaniel first. He froze. Wouldn't even speak. I went to the old man and he took fiie. Mad as a hornet. Ready to disown Nathaniel, then and there. But the old lady jumped in. She swore this was a made-up story, to embarrass the Bartees. She said Kate was willing to lie, for the very purpose of making this deal of mine. It was a plot, she said. So old Bartee got his back up. Nobody was going to pressure him. I'd made a bad mistake. Took away surprise. They were all set for the business of the pin. It went smoothly for them. Nathaniel pulled the second pin out of his pocket at the inquest."

Johnny said, "Now, listen to me. If you believe this Kate, then tell me how Nathaniel could pull a pin out of his pocket? Did he take Christy's out of the safe, then?" "No, no. Nathaniel was covered by a perfect alibi." "Is that so?" said Johnny wonderingly.

"Right. The gardener, sleeping in the grounds—I forget just how it went, but it was perfect."

"But if Kate's pin was in McCauley's pocket, the one Nathaniel had must have come from the safe," cried Johnny. "How?"

"A good question," sighed the lawyer. "I've wondered myself if the old lady could have picked- it off the floor."

"And framed McCauleyl"

"Protected Nathaniel. She's—autocratic. And Nathaniel was her pet. His father couldn't abide him. But she—she mothered him to pieces. Sometimes I think she cared more for her stepson than she ever did for Bart, Jr., after he got bom. A funny thing. Nathaniel was a stiange bii'd. He always was a liar."

"Liar?"

"Scared to death of the old man. So he'd lie. In a way, he had to. The old man would have eaten him alive. The only way a soft-shelled creature like Nathaniel could breathe was to lie."

"So McCauley was framed by a coincidence and some lies?"

"I think somebody lied. But I don't say that McCauley was innocent. I don't know."

"What about the boy? Dick?"

"Oh that," said Marshall. "That was McCauley's sister's theory. Pretty hard to believe such a thing of a fifteen-year-old boy."

"What kind^of boy was he?"

"A wild one. Not that all wild kids turn out so bad. I remember I had to forbid my daughter seeing him."

"Why did you do that, sir?"

"Because he was wild. Ran around in a car as he shouldn't have been doing, at his age. Only time I ever did put a parental foot down. But Blanche was good about it."

"Blanche!" Johnny was startled.

"My daughter married Bart, Jr.," the lawyer said. "Didn't you know?"

"No, sir, I didn't."

"Bart, Jr., is O.K., you know." The lawyer drummed his fingers. "I wish Dick had stayed away."

"Why, sir?"

"I don't exactly know.''

"Where had he been?"

"After they kicked him out of college—some escapade, I forget what—why, he roamed around the country. In and out of the Navy. All kinds of jobs. He tried some white-collar job on a big liner. Never stuck to anything very long.

Turned up here about a year and a half ago. Made up to the old man. But the old man left him out of his will. Nathaniel's proper share went to tfie old lady."

"Was Dick disappointed?"

"He took it very well, as far as I know."

"Is he a partner or what?"

"He's a hired hand, as far as I know. If he had money, I'm sure Bart could use it. I understand the old man didn't keep the place up. Bart's got a lot of modernizing to do. But where would Dick get any capital?"

Johnny didn't explain where.

"Bart will pull it out in time. Knows his business."

"You don't think Dick had anything to do with Christy's death?"

"I doubt it," the lawyer said. "I think McCauIey's stuck with it. A jury convicted him. You \\on't overturn that in a hurry." His eyes were tired.

Johnny rose.

"Bart and Dick are coming in this morning. Papers to draw up.^

"Thanks and excuse me," said Johnny hastily.

No, he wouldn't overturn anything in a hurr\% but he was in a hurry, just the same.

CHAPTER 11

Out on the sidewalk of the dusty little town that strung out along the highway, Johnny stood in thought.

What could he do or find that would mean an>'thing? Doubt did not help. Doubt was seventeen years too late. Yet, it wasn't Johnny's immediate business to convince a jury, but to convince himself. Resolve his own doubt. He must go to see this Kate.

Then he saw the green convertible, a dark head in the driver's seat, a blonde head riding beside. Nan pulled up to

the curb; Dorothy said, "What are you up to, Johnny? Come on to Riverside with us. You can buy us lunch."

"I've got a httle chore . . ." he began.

''Oh, poohl You've got to eat your lunch." Dorothy very much wanted him to come along.

Nan said mildly, "We're going to the Mission Inn. It's supposed to be nice. Why don't you come along, Johnny? Move in, Dotty. Let Johnny sit on the outside."

Johnny looked at Dorothy. The blue eyes seemed to say, ''! need to talk to you."

"Why don't you two come with me? Take fifteen minutes? Then I'll treat you to a fancy lunch, sky's the limit. A deal?"

''Where are you going?" asked Dorothy.

"To see a woman. Talk a minute."

"About that old murder?" Nan pouted.

''Oh, come on," said Dorothy. "Fifteen minutes can't hurt. More fun lunching with a man."

"We were going shopping," Nan began. But Dorothy was out of the car.

Nan took the keys out of the ignition and slid along the seat. "I'll just tag along behind you two," Nan said, most transparently throwing them together.

Kate's place seemed to have a Mexican clientele. The bar was not doing a lot of business; two dark-skinned men leaned there. Dark eyes inspected the girls.

The place was not elegant. Poverty came here. Poverty felt at home here. Poverty wouldn't notice the holes in the plaster, the stained ceiling.

The dark-haired, dark-eyed man behind the bar, when asked for Miss Callahan, simply shouted where he stood. She peered through a pair of dirty pink curtains at the back. "Yeah?"

"Miss Callahan, may we talk to you?"

"Why not?" she said. "Come on back here, why don't you?"

So they went through the pink curtains and here was a small square back room, a round table, perhaps for cards, a gas-heater, calendar art on the walls. A nest for Kate herself in the comer, consisting of a shapeless easy chair, a basket of magazines, a radio, a manicure set.

"Sit do^vn," said Kate cordially. She was fat. She wore a

rusty black dress and a long string of bright green beads. Her hair was dyed, black as a raven's wing. Her aging face was laden with peach-colored make-up. Her lids were painted blue. But her mouth was a wide curly mouth, and it smiled as if it were used to smiling. The eyes imder the blue hds were placid and kind.

"I came to ask you questions about Clinton McCauley?"

"Yeah?"

Johnny gave their names. They all sat down aroimd the

table. Kate said, 'Will you take something? Go ahead. On

>» me.

The girls declined with, thanks. But Johnny said, ''A beer? Thank you."

"Sure thing. Hey, Jaime!''

Kate would have a beer to keep him company. She moved the glass on the table. "Clinton McCauley," she said. "That poor guy." Her voice was pleasing. Husky and yet kind. "He never did no murder, you know. He got it, though. He's up at Q."

"I know,'' said Johnny. "I work for a writer, Miss Callahan. I'm looking for material."

"Well," Kate said, "it's a long time. But I'll teU you what I know about it. I knew Clint pretty well. Family man. Wanted to take care of his family. That Christy, though, that he was married to, she don't want to leave a nice cozy spot. She don't mind sponging on the Bartees."

"How did they get into the Bartee house?" asked Dorothy. "I want to understand."

"Oh, Dot," Nan murmured.

"Well, he went to Spain. Fought in that war," Kate said. "Christy, she didn't hold out long after he was gone. She coulda stayed where he put her. Decent apartment, CUnt said, and enough money in the bank to last her, if she'd just go easy. But no, she spent it up and then she moves in wath her rich relatives."

"Did you know Christy?" Johnny asked.

"Nope, I never even saw her. I don't get out much." Kate touched her hair. It seemed obvious that she was an indoor plant. "Well," she continued, "after Clint got out of Spain-he's wounded and out—lessee—in 1938, would it be? Well, Clint comes in here a lot. I felt sorry for him. He'd drink a few too many. Listen, who could blame him?" Kate paused.

' 'Course what he ought to have done, he oughta have gone and taken a job and said the—said she could fly a kite. But he didn't. Easy to say what he oughta have done."

"Easy, now," Johnny agreed.

'liie was just a kid, practically." Kate was tolerant to the bottom of her heart. This was plain. "Well, I guess you want to hear about the night she got killed. He was here, all right, that night. Finally left about 20 of 12 so as he could catch the last bus, see? He woulda got out there around midnight. I don't think he had time to kill anybody. That's what I say. Nobody listens to me, though."

Johnny was struck with this. Time to kill? First, to quarrel and to be heard quarreling. Time to wake the old lady.

"You'd swear to the time he left here?"

'1 did swear," Kate said. "The bus driver wouldn't swear, I though. He left all kinds of leeway."

(All gone into, years go.)

''Anyhow, fat lot of good, me swearing." The wide mouth curled.

Dorothy was hstening hard. Nan sat round-eyed, listening in spite of herself.

(Johnny thought, This is good. Let her begin to get-'Ae idea McCauley didn't do.it. Her father.) ''Go on," he said aloud.

'Well, so the next day, all I know is what I hear. She gets hit with a big old candlestick, and they catch Clint standing over her body with the thing that hit her in his hand."

Dorothy gasped.

'TH[e says he found it lying on the red carpet in the hall," said Johnny.

"Yeah, I know. But they didn't beheve him," Kate sighed. 'Well, so they got Clint in jail. I don't go to see him. Didn't think they'd let me in. For all I knew then, he did do it. I felt bad, you know. But I couldn't help feeling this Christy brought it on herself."

(Johnny winced. Her mother, he thought.)

"Well," Kate continued, "pretty soon, Mr. Marshall, that's Clint's lawyer, he comes around. What about this pin they found in Clint's pocket? O.K. Now—" Kate beat upon the table top with the back of her open hand. "1 gave him that pin two weeks before. I didn't give it to him to keep, see? But he had it and it was mine. I'd had that pin a million

years. Nathaniel Bartee gave it to me. Of course nobody believed that, either."

Nan said with a fastidious mouth, "Nathaniel Bartee?''

"Who was he?" asked Dorothy brightly. Dorothy had her hands clasped under her chin, elbows on the table.

"Dick's father, I believe," said Nan distantly.

"I don't understand about the pin,"said Dorothy.

Nan folded her hands and looked cool and detached.

"There were two pins alike," said Johnny rapidly. "Old Mrs. Bartee gave Christy one. Nathaniel's wife, the other. Christy's was in the safe, that evening. The safe was found open, at midnight. Christy's pin was gone. But Nathaniel's pin was in McCauley's pocket."

Dorothy blinked. "You mean they thought this McCauley took the pin out of the safe? Is that it?"

"That's it," said Johnny. "Nobody believed that Miss Cal-lahn, here, ever had one."

"Why didn't they?" asked Dorothy.

"Because Nathaniel Bartee produced a second pin."

"I don't understand . . ."

"Do you?" Johnny asked Kate Callahan.

"I expect it was on the floor, in there," said Kate, "and the old lady or, either, Nathaniel, one of them picked it up."

"And lied?" gasped Dorothy. "But why would Miss Callahan say she had one, if that wasn't true?"

Kate's mouth curled. "For heaven's sakes, call me Kate, dear."

"But you told about it—the police and all?" Dorothy demanded.

"Sure, I told. Got on the witness chair or whatever they call it. Told the truth." Kate's fat shoulders moved as it to say that truth had no chance in this seamy world. "Them Bartees hed."

Nan said, "Please, Johnny . . ." She looked distressed.

"A minute. Why did they lie, Kate? Were they trying to hurt McCauley?"

"I don't think so," the fat woman said, "I think it was just because the old man would have kicked Nathaniel out of the house for ever being near me." She spoke without resentment. "See, Nathaniel, he was afraid. You take a man who's afraid—" Kate looked sad, paint and all.

"What was he afraid of?"

'TH[is old man. The old lady. The world/'

"I thought the old lady-"

"Oh, she stuck up for him. But she bossed him/' Kate said. "That was the price of it. Nathaniel shoulda had a woman who'd let him be the boss. If he hadn't wanted to be the boss, Nathaniel would have got along a lot better."

'Tou are talking about Dick's father?" said Nan in a tight voice.

"That's right/' Kate nodded. "I didn't know him long. It was one time the old man went away for about six weeks and Nathaniel was worse oflF than ever. See, he was left in charge. He had his chance. He found out he just didn't have the guts to be the boss—or the nerve, or what it takes. He wasn't up to it. This hit him. Well, I was younger then That must be 1930 or '31—a million years ago.

"People come in here. Well, I'm friendly. They like to talk, you know. I guess it helps if you find a place where you say what's on your mind. Anyhow, he gave me that pin, last time I saw him, I think it was. He didn't say it was real jewels. I didn't think anything of it. He wanted to do something nice. There was no harm in that. But when it comes to the trial Nathaniel gets up and lies about it. Well, probably he had to." Kate understood, forgave.

"Why should he he?" said Dorothy fiercely.

"I told you. The old man would have kicked him out."

'WelI, then, he should have got out—"

"It would have been rough on him," Kate said. -

"Or good for him," said Dorothy angrily.

"Maybe so, dear. But things don't always happen the way they should, I guess." (Almost never, Kate's tone implied.) "When I couldn't help poor Chnton McCauley out of that mess, beheve me, I felt bad. Still, I think now he would have been miserable, anyhow. With Christy gone. He was too crazy about her. Well, I dunno . . ." Kate seemed to be accepting, digesting, almost bringing herself around to the point of agreeing with an old evil. Then she said, "One person I felt real sorry for, and that's the little baby. Poor little thing. Her mama killed, her papa sent up, and not true either."

"You think," said Johnny quickly, "that Chnton McCauley did not do itr

"I said so, didn't I? I know this much. He never took

any pin out of that safe, see? The one he had in his pocket was mine. That's what I know. And if they'd believed me, I don't think they could have put him away."

Dorothy said, with vigor, "If Clinton McCauley didn't kill her, who could have done it?"

Johnny, paralyzed, couldn't speak, couldn't stop an answer. Wasn't sure whether he ought . . .

"Who did kill Christy McCauley?" said Kate. "WeU, dear, I got an awful good guess. The crazy kid did it. You know, Nathaniel's kid. Richardson Bartee?"

Chair legs scraped. Nan rose. Her face was white. "You horrible woman!" she said. She got around the table.

Johnny was up and took her shoulders. Nan said furiously, "Let me go." Her eyes were hard and bright. "Now, I see what you're trying to do! Behind Dick's back! I despise you!" She shook away from his touch.

Johrmy felt sad. A great empty pit yawned open in the dark of his mind.

Dorothy was up, too. "I'll go with her," Dorothy said, catching his arm as if to hold him back. Johnny, who had not moved, looked down at her. "They had their blood tests made yesterday," she told him. Then Dorothy began to run after Nan.

Johnny followed to the door. Nan was down the block. He saw Dorothy catch up. He stood stiU. Blood tests! Yesterday!

Kate's voice said behind him, "Say, who are they?"

"That's Dick Bartee's fiancee," he told her painfully.

yeah? Who's the httle dark one?"

"His fiancee," Johnny repeated impatiently.

"The little one? WeU! I'd have thought he'd go for the snazzy blonde."

Johnny hardly heard. He didn't know whether to go after Nan or not. He decided not. Turning, took Kate's fat forearm in his fingers. "Isn't there anybody who could swear you ever had that pin?" he demanded. "Anybody?"

"A milhon years ago," she said sadly. "Nobody. See, I put it away. It didn't look like much. I never wore it. Wasn't my type of—" Kate grinned, "junk. But it was mine. And I never got it back either," she added. "What are you trying to do, anyhow? You're no writer, my friend."

"I'm trying to find some evidence."

"Listen, there isn't any evidence."

"Tell me this, will you? What makes you think the boy did it?"

"I don't know," said Kate.

"You don't know!" Johnny felt despair.

"Them Bartees sure tried to get something on me," Kate said plaintively. "My stuff was searched."

"Searched? What do you mean?"

"Christy was killed the Friday night. Sunday, well, I'm closed, see? In the evening, I go to church." Kate's eyes didn't expect him to believe her. "I sit in the back," she added apologetically, (and Johnny behoved her). "Somebody busted in here."

"What forr

"I don't know," Kate said. "Nothing was taken. But whoever got in that night and looked around, it wasn't Nathaniel, I'll^ teU you that."

"You think it was Dick Bartee?"

"Who else?" Kate shrugged. "He had tlie crust, that kid.''

Johnny, thoroughly puzzled, chewed on his mouth.

"I guess you don't want her to marry him," Kate said^ He^ looked at her a«d her eyes were kind.

"No," said Johnny hoarsely, "I don't want her to marry him."

"Can't blame you," she soothed. "It's a shame. But you can't find no evidence, especially now. See, Clint's sister, she tried. Every way in the worlcJ, she tried. And that was seventeen years ago. So see, there ain't a lot you can do. With the time gone by and all. You don't want to blame yourself."

Johnny could feel the steam leaking out of him.

"She's crazy about this Dick, eh? Well, she wouldn't listen. Look, for her, it is right to get mad like she did just now. You can see that." (Understand, Kate soothed. Just understand). "Come on back, have another beer. Listen, people bring things on themselves. Sometimes you just got to let them go."