“I have only a minute,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Pat. It looks queer downstairs without you.”

I raised up on one elbow. “That’s a lovely dress,” I told her. “But you’re thinner, aren’t you?”

“Me? I’m always thin. But I’ve got a rotten headache. I’ll slip off early if I can.”

Actually she looked feverish. She never used rouge, but that night she had a bright spot of color on each cheek. Amy looked after her when she left.

“If I were to keep count of the worried-looking people I’ve seen around here since I came,” she announced pontifically, “I wouldn’t have enough fingers. What’s the matter with everybody?”

That was on Saturday, September the twenty-third of last year.

So far as I know there had been nothing to indicate that tragedy was in the making. The Hill had turned from golf to hunting, the weather had been dry for weeks so that already the leaves were falling, and down in the valley Don Morgan had improved, had even taken to walking around the grounds and to sitting in the sun on the bench which faced out over the river. Amy said she had seen him once on the street, looking handsome and well dressed, but making a great show of being a sick man. “Using a stick to lean on!” she said. “A gold and malacca one, too. Trust old Don to have a gold and malacca cane. And Audrey beside him, holding his elbow. That brat makes me sick.”

The first warning I had was when Lydia called me up shortly before twelve o’clock that night. Amy was asleep by that time in the next room, but the door was closed.

“Did I waken you, Pat?” Lydia asked.

“No. There was a small dinner here tonight, and some of the die-hards are just leaving.”

“Is Tony there?”

“I don’t think he’s back. He had dinner at the country club. What is it, Lydia?”

She lowered her voice. “I’m terribly worried,” she said. “I don’t want Audrey to hear me. Pat, Don’s not in his room.”

“Maybe he couldn’t sleep and took a walk.”

“I’ve been out. Anyhow he was in his pajamas. He couldn’t go far like that. Pat, do you think—He’s been downhearted the past few days, and with the river right here—”

“Don’t be foolish. He’d never do that. Look here, I think Bill Sterling’s still here. He filled in for Margery at bridge after he saw me tonight. Let me send him down.”

She refused that. She said she would wait an hour or so before doing anything, and rang off. But I could not sleep. Just about midnight the party below broke up. I could hear the cars drive up and move on, and some time later Maud coming up the stairs. At something after one Bessie came home from the club in the car, and I hobbled to the window to see her coming alone from the garage, and to wonder where Tony was. Then at half past one he wandered in on foot from the direction of the golf course. He was bareheaded and apparently weary. I saw him stop and look up at the house, but as my light was out he did not see me.