“It’s no dice, gentlemen,” he said. “No dice whatever.” And banged the door as he went out.

They released Bill Sterling the next day. But they put a man to watch him, and out of that Bill got the first fun he had had in weeks. The detective only went to bed when Bill did, and every now and then Bill would call him up at the hotel in the middle of the night.

“All right, brother,” he would say cheerfully. “Get your clothes on and I’ll be around to pick you up. Baby case in the country.”

“Go on and have your baby. I need some sleep.”

“Not on your life. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

The relief was tremendous. It was wonderful to have Bill, big and quiet, coming in to see Maud once more. And Tony was himself again. One Saturday morning I found a sheet of paper in my office typewriter:

Mr. Anthony Wainwright requests the pleasure of Miss ABbott’S company—two damns here. This machine’s crazy—on horseback at the stalbes at three o8clock this afternoon. R.S.V.P.

I went. I remember that Tony rode hatless, and how the wind stirred his hair. I remember the tang of autumn in the air, and the sharp click of the horses’ hoofs as we cantered along the trail. And most of all I remembered stopping at the top of a hill, and Tony suddenly serious.

“Why can’t life be like this, Pat?” he said. “Work and play, and a girl like you to come home to?”

I controlled my voice. “It could be,” I said steadily. “One mistake needn’t ruin everything.”

He sat still, looking out over the hills. Then he leaned over in his saddle and touched my hand.

“Some day, my darling,” he said quietly.

The case was not over, of course. It was, in a way, only beginning. But except for the police boats still on the river, things had largely settled down. True, Hopper was to be seen now and then, and the little detective in Bill’s car began to be a familiar figure. When Bill was seeing Maud the man would wander about the place.

One day I saw him with an orchid in his buttonhole, and only hoped he would escape before Andy discovered it.

But aside from these reminders, everything was fairly quiet. Even the reporters had abandoned us, although there was still a corporal’s guard of them, indignant that the Beverly Hotel had no liquor license. They hung mostly around the station house, getting Coca-Cola at the drugstore when nothing else was to be had. Now and then in the grounds I would be disconcerted to hear the click of a camera, and see a face grinning at me from the shrubbery.

“Atta girl! Thanks a lot.”

It would disappear, and incredibly soon after I would see a hideous distortion of myself in the papers.

Maud was allowed to sit up by that time. She was very thin, for her, and her color was not good. One day she asked me if I thought Evans could have murdered Don.