When the coroner came, however, he found something Jim had missed. Don had been struck on the back of the head. The injury was there, under that heavy hair of his; not enough to kill him, but enough to knock him out. He also found some bruises on the body, old ones, and seemed puzzled about them.

But he was sure that it was murder, although he refused to commit himself until after the autopsy. All this time Bill Sterling was standing by, and with the coroner’s dry comment Jim looked at him. It was the first time, he said later, that he realized Don’s death would be a happy release to several people. And that one of them was Bill Sterling himself.

“After all, he’d hated Don’s guts,” he said inelegantly. “He didn’t even pretend to be sorry. He looked uneasy, but that’s about all.”

However that may be, the body having been taken away and the two men driving back to the village, Jim made a stab at the facts.

“I don’t suppose Lydia Morgan will grieve a lot,” he said. “She did the decent thing, but after all, what was he to her?”

He felt Bill stiffen beside him. “Keep Lydia out of this,” Bill said curtly. “It has nothing to do with her.”

Jim dropped Bill at the local hospital, where Don’s body already lay in the mortuary, ready for the autopsy. After that he had a busy morning. First of all he set out to locate Lydia’s car, putting Cracker Brown to work on the police radio in case it had been driven far, and himself telephoning up and down the river boroughs. But he had a strong hunch, as he put it, that the car was not far away.

“It looked like a local job to me,” he said. “Somebody who would leave it within walking distance of town, or the Hill. That’s what I went on anyhow.”

He himself still believed Don had been in the river. He sent the police car into the hills and took the valley himself, investigating every lane and street leading to the water front. Lydia’s car was not to be found, however, and at one o’clock he threw the stream overboard, so to speak, and went home to lunch.

The patrol car had been equally unlucky. It was Sunday, and the back roads and lanes were filled with cars, many of them parked for a family picnic. Then at three o’clock with the coroner’s verdict that Don had died by drowning before Jim on his desk and Cracker Brown in the radio room self-importantly eating a ham sandwich, Julian Stoddard called the police station.

“One of my men has found an abandoned car in the ravine below my house, Mr. Conway,” he said. “I understand you’re looking for one.”

“I’ll be there,” said Jim. “If I had a feather I’d fly.”

Julian did not think that funny. He was a reserved man, careful of his dignity. “If you will come to my place I will show it to you,” he said coldly, and hung up the receiver.