“After more than fifteen years!” she said. “He didn’t care for me. He was charming, of course; grateful too. But I began to worry. I knew there was something wrong.”

She couldn’t tell Bill. He never came near her. She couldn’t tell anybody. But she slept with her door open, and one night she found Don halfway down the stairs in his pajamas. She had thought then he wanted liquor. Now she wasn’t so sure. One thing was certain: he had not telephoned anybody. There was only one phone and it was in the hall downstairs. Of course, Audrey might have mailed his letters, but she never knew him to write any.

“I began to wonder if it was that woman again,” she said, “or another one. But you saw him, Pat. You know how agreeable he could be. He seemed so pleased about everything. He even asked to see Bill. He said he would be gone soon, and I ought to marry again. But Bill wouldn’t put a foot in the house.”

Nobody had come to see Don except myself. It had been as though the three of them had suddenly been cut off from the world about them. “Like living on an island,” Lydia put it.

Nevertheless, he must have communicated with somebody. On the day he was killed there had been a telephone message for him. As it happened Audrey had been out and she had gone into the garden. When she came into the lower hall he was there, hanging up the receiver.

“You were out, my dear,” he said, “so I managed to get down.”

“Who was it?”

“Wrong number,” he told her, and she had helped him up the stairs again.

But she had been suspicious. She had begun to wonder if he had not had the car out at night. She had found the gas low once or twice, and that day he looked secretive. It was an old familiar look to her.

“I made up my mind he wouldn’t go out that night,” she said. “I was willing to care for him, but not to connive at anything.”

So she had sent his clothing to the cleaners.

“All of it,” she said drearily. “Everything except his overcoat. So you see what happened. He had made an appointment with someone, and his clothes were gone. It must have been pretty bad. But he went anyhow. I—”

Her voice trailed off, and we sat for some minutes in silence. When she spoke her voice was husky.

“I didn’t love him, Pat. He had made me too unhappy for that. But I’m tragically sorry for him. He liked to live. He liked good food and drink and clothes. He liked this view too.”

I asked her if she had heard him take the car out. She shook her head.

“No. I never dreamed he would go out. How could he? Anyhow, the garage is on the other side of the house. He knew the car would be there, of course. Larry Hamilton had taken Audrey to the country club that night.” She drew a long breath. “I’m frightened, Pat. Bill is so queer, and that story about his following the car—Pat, if I thought he did it I’d jump in the river.”