But with Don’s return to Beverly things had become serious with them. Julian could not sleep. He took to walking around at night, wondering what to do. Then came the murder, and Julian was convinced Evans had done it.

“He denied it. He even said Julian had killed Don, and good riddance to bad rubbish! It was dreadful.”

However that may be, after Don’s murder it had been necessary to get him away. Julian had got him out of the hospital at night and to a house he owned across the river. He withdrew money from the bank—three thousand dollars in cash—and urged Evans to go away. But he did not go. Now and then he telephoned her, but he didn’t sound like himself. He told her once that if she heard of a lunatic loose not to worry.

“That was the cemetery, Pat,” she said, and shuddered. “It was his idea of throwing suspicion away from Julian.”

They did their best for him. He didn’t want a car. He wanted a bicycle as less conspicuous, and Julian took one to him. By that time both she and Julian were sure he had murdered Don, but they could not turn him over to the police. Maud’s death, however, confused them. “He had been fond of her, in his way,” she said. “He would never have done that, Pat. And now, Bessie!”

At first they had succeeded in keeping him hidden. The cemetery incident had convinced them that he was unbalanced. “And what good would it have done to arrest him? He would have died, and he had been good to me.”

But the search at last began to catch up with him. One day he saw the storekeeper where he got his groceries looking at him hard. That night he got away. He wasn’t young. It must have been dreadful for him. He came over here and borrowed Andy McDonald’s car, and the state policeman chased him. He ran into him and took his clothes, to gain time.

“He brought them here that night, Pat,” she said. “They’re buried somewhere behind the kennels.”

But at least he was safe now, she thought. He had never admitted killing Don, of course, although he might if Julian’s case went against him. But he insisted that it had been Don who knocked him out in the playhouse and took his keys.

“Is he where you can find him if you need him?” I asked.

“Yes. I got old Connor down and told her the whole story. He has a room where she lives. He’s supposed to be her brother.”

I had hardly recovered from that when she told me about my being attacked the night I had sat with her beside the empty pool. Evans had been in the grounds that night, and he had overheard what I told her.

“That’s when I began to think he had lost his mind,” she said. “I hadn’t known he was there, but he admitted it later. You see, if you ever told what you knew about me, either Julian or he would go to the chair. I really think he meant to kill you.”