“I’ve done all I can,” she said angrily. “If you let Bill Sterling go to the chair I’ll tell everything I know. Everything.”

Bessie laughed. “I don’t think you’ll do that. Better think it over.”

Then Prince rounded the underbrush and Bessie threw away her cigarette and got up. “Here’s Pat,” she said. “Well, I’ve had my exercise. I’ll wander back home.”

I walked Prince back to let him cool off, and Bessie kept close to his heels. I had a faint hope that he would haul off and kick her, but he did not. And it was Bessie who told me about Bill’s arrest. I could not believe it. Not until I had telephoned Mrs. Watkins was I convinced. Then riding clothes and all I took my car and drove down to see Lydia.

Lydia was seeing nobody. The maid who answered the door said she had eaten no breakfast, and that her door had been locked since the night before. She had not even seen Miss Audrey. No, Miss Audrey was not there. She had gone to the cemetery, she thought.

I still had no idea what it was all about. I turned up the hill toward the cemetery, and it was on the road there that I saw Audrey, still dressed in deep mourning and on foot. Neither she nor Lydia had used the car since Don’s death, and she was limping along on high heels, carrying a rather wilted bunch of dahlias from their garden.

I stopped and picked her up, but she had little to say. For the first time I felt sorry for her. She looked young and hot in her black, and her eyes were swollen as if she had been crying. She put her flowers on the seat and got in.

“Thanks a lot, Pat,” she said. “My feet were about gone.”

She got out a handkerchief and dabbed carefully at her face. I had meant to ask her about Bill’s arrest, but the moment was not propitious.

“Why don’t you get away, both of you?” I asked. “You certainly look as though you could stand a change.”

“Mother won’t go, and I don’t care where I am.”

“Well, get out the car and use it then,” I said impatiently. “After all, you’ll have to use it sometime. You can’t go wandering around on foot forever.”

She shivered. “I never want to see it again. It—it’s horrible.”

“Listen, Audrey,” I said. “You hadn’t seen your father since you were a small child. I know it is sad and all that, but you can’t let it spoil your life. You’re still young, and perhaps if you knew all the facts you would accept the thing better.”

“What facts?”

“Why don’t you ask your mother? I don’t think she has been entirely frank with you. After all, he went off and left you both, and I don’t imagine it has been easy for her.”

“She hated him. She wanted him dead,” she said with sudden violence. “I’ve seen her face when she thought she was alone. She looked murderous.”