“I’m not going to town,” she said.

“Oh, yes, you are,” I said. “You’re going to town all right, and you’re going to tell the dirty little trick you pulled. You can have your choice of going with me or of being taken there by the police. So far as I’m concerned you can roll a hoop all the way. But you’re going.”

She went, of course. I think she knew that I was ready to take her by main force if necessary. She sulked all the way in, but she was frightened too. I began to feel sorry for her, but when she snubbed Lydia by refusing to speak to her at all I was cold with fury.

Everybody who followed our murders knows what happened that day in the district attorney’s office. They could not break Lydia’s story. She had found the gun, put it away, and forgotten about it. Then when Evans disappeared and she heard about his revolver, she had decided to hide it.

No, she had no idea how her husband had happened to have it. He had had it, that was all. She had not told Dr. Sterling about it. He had never seen it until he found it in his desk. Certainly she had buried it in her garden. If there was dirt in it they could prove that, couldn’t they? There must be ways to identify the kind of earth. She had used Irish moss on her borders. That could be recognized, couldn’t it, if it was there?

It was not conclusive, but there was obvious honesty in her face and manner; and Audrey, brought in after Lydia, gave her own story with such obvious prejudice against Bill that she was equally convincing. No, she had never known her father to have a gun. All she knew was that she had seen Lydia burying it. “And she would do anything to protect Bill Sterling.” Protect him from what? Why did she associate the revolver with the doctor? Did she knew it belonged to Evans? Had she examined it?

Her lovely face was set with hatred. She had loved her father and she believed Bill had killed him. In the end it became clear that her motive in putting the revolver in Bill’s desk was merely that she thought it belonged to him. Then she burst into hysterical crying, and they let her go.

There was a conference after that. The district attorney lit a cigar and sat back in his chair. “We can get an indictment,” he said. “We’ve still got that key on the doctor’s ring, and his car in the Beaver Creek Road that night. There’s no doubt that he detested Morgan and wanted him out of the way. But we’ve a long way to go before we’ve got a case.”

Jim Conway was in on that conference. They hadn’t wanted him, but he was there. Now he grinned at Stewart.

“You never did have a case,” he said. “How in heck could Bill Sterling have been just behind the murder car? He’s not twins.” He got up and jammed his hat on his head.