Miss Withers was forcibly reminded of something much deader, when her eyes fell upon the ruins of a paneled door which had been thrown into a corner. It certainly had been most thoroughly smashed, and the marks where the bolt had torn away were clearly visible. Behind this door Janet Wayland had been murdered. . . .

“There’s one thing I may as well tell you,” Wayland said. “It may queer the sale of the house. My wife died here, in fact she was murdered—”

“Yes, I know,” said Miss Withers, backing away a little.

“Oh, then you did read the papers!”

She nodded. “But I’m not at all fidgety about such things. I imagine that if most old houses could talk, they’d have a tale of violence and tragedy to tell.”

He nodded agreeably. “I never want to see the place again, of course. I’m anxious to sell it, and use the money in trying to trace down the murderer of my wife. The police are helpless, but I intend to try the big private agencies. . . .” He shook his head. “But of course that wouldn’t interest you, except that I’m in a position to accept any halfway-reasonable offer for the house.”

They went on back past the magazines, past the pitiful heap of the dead woman’s clothing, and up the steep stair. “Well,” said George Wayland, “that’s the works. You’ve seen everything. What do you think about it?”

His eyes met hers directly, but they were wary, amused, and almost teasing. The schoolteacher suddenly realized what he was thinking. He hadn’t for a moment been fooled about her being a possible purchaser. In some odd way, perhaps almost in spite of himself, he was letting her know that he had murdered his wife, that he was getting away with it, and that he dared her to say or do anything.

“Think it over,” Wayland continued. “You don’t have to make up your mind today.” He laughed, and his laughter to Miss Withers seemed as hard and brittle as the breaking of wood—or the crackle of thorns under a pot. Somehow she managed to keep from screaming, to hold herself from bursting into panicky flight, until he had opened the front door for her once more. “Thank you for coming,” said George Wayland. “And do remember me to your friend the Inspector.”

The door closed, and Miss Withers scuttled down the street, her feathers ruffled, for all the world like a scandalized hen. “Laugh in my face, will he? The nerve of him!” A moment or so later she almost burst out laughing, realizing that her tone had almost exactly been that of the Inspector last night when he complained that Wayland had thumbed his nose at him.