He found her washing up after our tea and singing softly to herself. The little man stepped in and slammed the door in the landlady’s face. “No trouble, Miss Connor,” he said. “Just a little talk. You used to know a girl named Marguerite Weston, didn’t you?”

She dried her hands, staring at him. “What about her?” she said. “She’s not—dead?”

“Not so far as I know,” he said cheerfully. “Want a description of her, that’s all. She’s come into a bit of money, and we’d like to locate her.”

“Really!” she said. “How nice for her. I’ve got a snapshot of her, but it was taken fifteen years ago. Still, it might help.”

The little man’s face was impassive when she produced it. “I’d like to take it along with me,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind. You’ll get it back all right.”

He put it carefully in his wallet, and Miss Connor was beaming as she let him out the front door. The landlady was waiting, all ears, but Miss Connor did not explain.

“Just a friend of mine who has inherited some money,” she said, and went smiling happily up the stairs to her room.

The police had spent Saturday making certain investigations, including the attack on me. Then on Sunday afternoon they had sent for Julian Stoddard. District Attorney Stewart was sitting behind his desk with that small snapshot of Margery before him. He picked it up.

“You recognize this picture, Mr. Stoddard?”

Julian took it. He must have known what it meant, but his hand was steady. “I do,” he said. “It is my wife.”

Nobody in the room moved. There were half a dozen men there: the police commissioner, the head of the homicide squad, Hopper, and two or three others. Only Stewart stared at Julian with his little pig’s eyes. “She was Marguerite Weston?”

“Yes. I married her after she divorced Donald Morgan.”

“You knew she had married him and been deserted by him?”

“I did.”

Stewart leaned back. “I see,” he said. “So this return of his wasn’t particularly pleasant for you. Especially since you’d buried your wife’s former identity. Is that it?”

“Her former identity was her business, and mine.”

“Oh, come, come, Mr. Stoddard! It was more than that. You or your wife had been paying money to keep it quiet, hadn’t you?”

It had been a shrewd question. Even Hopper, who had suggested it, was not too sure. But Julian himself looked up indignantly. “I have paid blackmail to nobody,” he said stiffly.

“I suggest that someone has, Mr. Stoddard. Perhaps your wife.”

They left it at that, although at a word from Hopper one of the men slipped out. Even then I doubt if Julian had fully realized his position. He must have done so with the next question. “Did you see Morgan after he came back?”

“Never.”

“Did your wife see him?”

“No.”

“Are you positive of that?”

“Absolutely.”

Then his iron control broke. He got up. “I don’t know what all this is about. I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you mean, Stewart. Why should I wait a dozen years and then do a thing like that? He wasn’t here to stay. He was going away. The last thing I wanted was to blow things wide open, and his murder was sure to do that.”