“Yes.”

“Why did you choose the Beaver Creek Road?”

He reddened somewhat. “Because I knew it was a favorite drive of Mrs. Morgan’s.”

“Did you see either Mrs. Morgan or her daughter in the car?”

“No. I saw nobody.”

“What time was this, Doctor?”

“One o’clock. I looked at my watch when I turned back.” There was a profound silence when he left the stand. Everybody there knew he had loathed Don and loved Lydia. Now he had been placed near the scene of what the press called the murder car, and they were bewildered. Bill Sterling, in whom they had believed—as people will about their doctors—almost as they believed in God, Bill Sterling was virtually being accused of murder.

Everything was anticlimax after that: Jim’s testimony as to finding the car, the floor covering in the rear still damp and the overcoat wet. There were no prints. Either the car had been carefully wiped or whoever left it had worn gloves. There was no evidence that the body had been in it when it was hidden, the general idea being that the body had been left where it was found and then the car driven to the lane.

“In other words,” said the coroner, “whoever hid the car left it on foot?”

“It looks like it. The ground was too dry for footprints.”

The slipper and the pajama-coat button were produced, while the crowd craned its necks to see them.

“You found these in the pool on the Wainwright estate?”

“I did. The slipper was recovered by one of my men. The button was found after the pool was emptied.”

The coroner looked at his notes. “One more question,” he said. “How was the body taken out of the pool?”

“That’s pure guesswork,” said Jim. “Whoever did it might have taken off his clothes and gone in after it. Personally I think that’s what he did. There were a number of damp towels lying around.”

That was practically all. At the end they had a pretty clear picture—up to a point—of what had happened to Don Morgan. For some reason he had taken Lydia’s car out the night of his death. At some place not as yet known he had met his murderer. He had been knocked out and drowned in the playhouse pool, his body disposed of, and Lydia’s car driven into the hills and left.

There was no mention of the key found in Bill’s possession, perhaps at the suggestion of the police. All they wanted that day was a verdict of murder; and, of course, they got it. It was six o’clock that Monday evening when it came in. There was not a man on the jury who believed Bill Sterling had done it, and the verdict was that Donald Morgan had been murdered by some person or persons unknown.

Chapter Fourteen

THEY BURIED DON MORGAN the next day from St. Mark’s. Maud was a little better that morning. Not well. It would be a long time before she was herself again. Her lips were still blue and looked swollen, but she was at least fully conscious. Shortly after Amy came on—all three nurses were on eight-hour shifts—she asked for me. I went in, to find her under that miserable tent, her voice little more than a whisper.