“Endangered? Whom could Don Morgan hurt? He’d been away too long.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. You know how he left. Everybody does. He ran away with a girl, didn’t he? All right. Let’s suppose she’s married since. Settled down anyhow, become respectable, made a place for herself in the world. Wouldn’t she want to hold onto it?”

“I still don’t see why he would be a danger to her.”

“He might have tried to get money from her. Or maybe her husband didn’t know anything about that past of hers. How old would she be, at a guess? Thirty-five?”

“About thirty-three, I think. Not sure. She was very young when it happened, according to Lydia.”

“Well, what I want you to do is to get at this old girl. Find out what the Weston woman looked like. Where she lived. Maybe there’s a photograph of her around somewhere. If there is I want it. How about it?”

I got up angrily. “You believe it was Bessie, don’t you? And that Tony helped her get rid of the body? All I can say is that I think—”

“Listen, Pat,” he urged. “Be reasonable. Suppose she meets Morgan, has a fit of temper, and knocks him into the pool. She can’t get him out, so he drowns. We know Tony was out that night, and not all the time at the club either. Maybe she finds him and tells him. It’s a hell of a mess, and there’s his mother to think of. What can he do? He gets the body as far from the Cloisters as he can, and as he’s never known Morgan nobody suspects him. He had plenty of time, remember. He admits he didn’t get back until half past one that morning.”

But I refused. Let somebody else do their dirty work. I couldn’t spy on the people who employed me. I remember Jim’s arguing, even following me to the door when I left.

“Think it over,” he said. “If Tony’s mixed up in this he probably couldn’t help it. If he isn’t, why not try to clear him before that bunch of weasels from the district attorney’s office begin to chew him up? And by the way,” he added, “in case you change your mind, the old girl’s name is Connor. Miss Connor. A virgin and proud of it.”

I spent a sleepless night. It fitted together too well, that story of Jim’s. It might even explain Evans. Suppose Evans had slipped out of the hospital that night? Where would he be more likely to wander than back to the Cloisters? He might have seen Tony. He might even have helped him. But he would never involve him. Rather than do that he would run away. It was even possible, I thought unhappily, that Tony himself had helped him to escape.

Chapter Twenty-Two

SO I COME AT last to our real tragedy. Not immediately. There were still some peaceful days, with Amy gone and Maud downstairs every afternoon for tea. Tony made it a point to be there at those times, but he saw the change in her, as I did.