It was a long speech for him. He got out a handkerchief and mopped his hands, as though they were sweating.

“But it’s preposterous,” I said, my mouth dry with fright. “It’s got to be stopped, this talk, Larry.”

He gave me a twisted smile. “Try it and see,” he said, and picking up his hat went out the way he had come in.

I knew then what Hopper had meant about Tony defending his own honor. Tony, perhaps learning that Bessie had a rendezvous with Don at the playhouse, following her when she left the club, and in one of his quick rages killing him. I went cold all over.

Tony was in a vicious temper when he came home that night. Evidently part of the story had reached him.

“See here,” he said. “Have you heard that I had a row with Don Morgan?”

“Something of the sort.”

He gave a bark of bitter laughter. “So my friends and neighbors are after me!” he said. “Of all the damnable absurdities—Listen, my dear, you’re entitled to know about it. There was no quarrel. As a matter of fact, the old boy behaved pretty handsomely. I’d dropped around to leave some fruit I’d promised Lydia, and he sent for me. He looked embarrassed, but he was clear enough. Audrey was young. He didn’t want her falling for a man who had a wife already. When I told him I had no intentions, honorable or otherwise, he grinned. That’s all there was to it. But I suppose Audrey was outside the door.”

I did not tell him the rest of Larry’s story. He looked all in, and after dinner he went down to see Jim Conway. But I did take it up with Bessie that night. It was too serious to ignore.

She was in her sitting room lying on a chaise longue with a movie magazine in her hand. She got up to unlock the door and admit me, then went back. But when I told her she leaped to her feet.

“That’s a dirty lie,” she said. “I never did such a thing. Do you think I’ve lost my mind?”

She was angry as well as frightened, but I did not believe she was lying. I left shortly after, and I heard her locking her door behind me. Whatever she was afraid of was in the house itself, apparently.

Roger found the garter the next day. It was an ordinary man’s garter, comparatively new but showing exposure to the weather. I had taken him for a walk, and he came out of the shrubbery with it in his mouth. He played with it for a while, throwing it with a toss of his head, then pouncing on it.

When I rescued it it was rather the worse for wear, and as it was of an ordinary make it was not much of a clue. But Jim Conway, inspecting it when I showed it to him, looked worried. “We may have to cut some time off that hour of Bill Sterling’s,” he said. “It looks as though the killer, whoever he was, didn’t wait to dress.”