The morning papers had the story of the attack on Bessie. It had taken place at a sharp curve, and when her rear tires blew out she had lost control of the car. There were even photographs of the car itself, with a wrecking crew working over it and Jim standing by. Maud was badly upset by the whole affair. When she learned that Dwight Elliott was in the house she sent for him.

They had a long talk, and he came out looking less like his dapper self than usual. He stopped me in the hall and asked me to search the house that day for Tony’s gun.

“It’s important,” he said. “I needn’t say how important, Miss Abbott.”

Bessie was better that morning, although in a vile humor. She maintained that someone had tried to murder her, that she knew who it was, and that the police did not have to go to look. All in all it was a mad day. I searched the house from the trunk room on the third floor to the basement. There was no gun. And late in the afternoon—as usual in my desperate moments—I went down to see Lydia. Of all people in the world Miss Mattie was there, in the black taffeta which looked like the one she used to wear at dancing school, and sitting with her neat toes neatly pointed out.

“I was telling Lydia,” she said, “I don’t know whether to go to the police or not. You see, I think I saw the man who shot at Mrs. Wainwright last night.”

“Saw him!” I gasped.

She fluttered. “I certainly saw somebody. I was driving out from town. I’d been in to look for a gift for you, my dear.” She looked at Lydia. “I was coming out slowly. You know I’m a nervous driver. And about where the accident happened I saw a man standing by a parked car.”

“What sort of man? What sort of car?”

“Well, now, I really can’t say. It was dark, you know. It was just before you get to that curve.” She shuddered. “I almost stopped and asked him if he needed help. Just think, if I had!”

“I don’t think he would have hurt you, Miss Mattie,” I said. “Whoever it was was after Bessie Wainwright, not you.”

“I see,” she said in a gentle voice. “Poor Tony Wainwright! But then I believe she was always rather fast.”

I looked after her as she got into her car.

“You see how it is,” I said bitterly. “They all believe it was Tony. Even the police.”

“The truth has a habit of coming out, Pat,” Lydia said quietly.

Some boats were dragging the river for Evans that day. Not the police. They had ceased operations some time before. Tony, however, had offered a reward for Evans’s body, dead or alive, with the result that half a dozen small craft were at work. I could see them from where I sat. They made me shiver, but Audrey and her young crowd seemed to be enjoying it. They had established a sort of headquarters down by the water, and I could hear them that day from where I sat.