“Why on earth would she take a revolver and go outside to meet him? He was in the house all evening.”

“The police are not sure she was outside when she was struck.”

It was horrible. I had a queer ringing in my ears. They thought Tony had waited for her, struck her down and then carried her out into the winter night; had left her there, gone over to the playhouse, wiped the Buddha and left it where it might not be found until spring, if ever.

“But why?” I asked. “What reason had he? He meant to divorce her. He didn’t have to kill her.”

He hesitated. “He was angry, of course. Aside from that—well, you’ll hear it soon enough. She told me, and I don’t doubt she told him, that she knew something about his mother. He had endured a great deal. He wouldn’t take that easily.”

Neither he nor Tony knew what it was, he said. It was Bessie’s secret, and she had kept it to the end. “Probably only something in her own unhealthy mind,” he observed, and got up to go. “I gather she was not on confidential terms with you.”

“No. She told me she was afraid, but not why.”

“I’ve been over her papers,” he said. “She has left a number of bills but nothing important. Whatever it was, if anything, it died with her.”

I went out with him. He looked better, certainly for the whisky and perhaps for the talk. But before he stepped on the gas he asked me to regard our conversation as strictly private.

“I needn’t tell you that the police would jump at it.”

I nodded, and I can still see him, neat, distinguished, important, starting that big car of his and giving me a dignified wave of the hand as the car got under way.

I never saw him again alive.

That was on Friday, the twenty-second of December. Bessie had been killed on Wednesday night, and the inquest, delayed a day by request of the police, was set for Saturday morning. Down in his office in Beverly, Jim Conway was still waiting for a cablegram. He was not idle, however. He was in touch with Hopper at the detective bureau in town; and as a result, an inconspicuous individual with a small load of Christmas trees had unloaded them on an empty lot across from Lydia’s house, and the little man who had tailed Bill Sterling was back again, to Mrs. Watkins’s indignation.

“What do you want here?”

“I’m waiting for the doc. Got a cold. How’ve you been lately?”

“I’ve been a sight better since you went away. If you’re back here on any of your dirty work you can get out. We don’t want you.”

But he remained. Once he went back to the kitchen. “That wouldn’t be mince pies I smell, would it?” he inquired wistfully.

“It would,” said Mrs. Watkins tartly. “Take a good smell. It’s all you’ll get.”

About six o’clock that evening there was a conference, not at Jim’s office but at his house. Men left their cars at a distance and went in, by ones and twos. Jim was there, Tony, and O’Brien. Even Hopper came, stayed for a short time, and went away, leaving behind him the box of keys found in the trunk room. At seven they separated, still stealthily, walking lightly over the hard-frozen ground, and in their various cars went up the Hill Road. Only Tony went on to the Cloisters, however. The rest left their cars, one or two in the country club grounds, others at the Stoddard place but away from the house, and at the Earles’.