“I suppose that means it was somebody in the house who did it?”

“Exactly. That’s why the betting is on Bessie.”

Chapter Thirty

IT WAS THAT SAME day that Audrey stepped back into the picture. Bill had gone, and Amy had an errand in the village. I heard her driving out in her old car, with the clash of gears that almost brought tears to Gus’s eyes; and half an hour later Reynolds announced that Audrey wanted to see me. I had no time to refuse, for she was directly behind him, looking both defiant and terrified.

“I’m sorry, Pat,” she said in a thin voice. “But Larry made me come.”

I was not too pleasant. “What have you been doing now?” I asked resignedly. “Come in and sit down anyhow. Better let me send for a glass of sherry. You look all in.”

“I am. I don’t want anything to drink.”

She surprised me by beginning to cry; but I had had enough of tears, including my own, to last me a lifetime. I told her rather stiffly to pull herself together, and at last she wiped her eyes. “I didn’t want to say anything, Pat. Only Larry says if I don’t he’ll have to tell Jim Conway. He thinks maybe you can explain it.”

“Explain what, Audrey?”

“You’ll have to promise first. If you tell the police, I’ll jump in the river.” Her mouth set in sulky stubbornness, and figuratively I threw up my hands. I agreed not to go to Jim, but her first words made my heart fairly leap into my throat.

“It’s about Mother,” she said, tears threatening again. “You see, she was at the playhouse here when Mrs. Wainwright was killed.”

I looked at her. She was a nuisance and dangerous. She had almost convicted Bill Sterling of murder. She was totally unscrupulous about getting her own way. But that day she looked as though a hand had passed over her face and wiped away all the life and all the beauty.

“I don’t believe it,” I said. “What have you got against your mother, to say a thing like that? What would she be doing there?”

That sent her off once more, but at last I got her story. She and Larry had been to dinner and the theater in town the night of Maud’s death. They drove back, passing the entrance to our drive at something before midnight, and as they passed, or just before it, a car turned in. Larry had insisted that it was Lydia’s, and she had said it was silly. They wrangled about it part way down to the valley. Then Larry had said he would prove it, and turned back.

When they were almost there the car came out of the drive, going very fast, but their lights caught it full as it made the turn. It was Lydia’s car, and Lydia was in it.

“She looked dreadful,” Audrey said, still in a thin, strained voice. “She never saw us. I don’t think she even knew a car was there.”