He knew it was useless. It was the ugly side of all tragedy, this morbid curiosity and avid interest which deprived even grief of privacy. But he could not fight it. He went upstairs and took a bath, as though to wash it away.

In the dining-room at the Fairbanks house the inspector was eating a substantial Sunday morning breakfast of sausages and pancakes, and a long rangy captain of the homicide squad was trying to keep up with him. Hilda, unable to eat, eyed them resentfully. Men were like that, she thought. They did not project themselves into other people’s troubles as women did. All this was just a case, a case and a job. It did not matter that a family was being torn apart, or that some one member of it was probably headed for the chair.

William had brought in a fresh supply of pancakes when Amos came in. His small, sly eyes were gleaming.

“Fellow out in the yard says to tell you he’s got a footprint,” he said. “It’s under the big oak, and he’s got a soapbox over it.”

The captain got up, eyeing his last pancake ruefully.

“I guess you win, inspector,” he said. “Thirteen to my eleven. I suppose you’ll want a cast.”

He went out, and the inspector took a final sip of coffee and put down his napkin.

“I’m feeling stronger,” he announced. “Nothing like food to take the place of sleep.”

“I should think you could stay awake for the next month,” said Hilda tartly.

He got up and lit a cigarette.

“Don’t be crabbed,” he said. “It doesn’t suit you. You are the ministering angel, the lady who knits while people pour out their troubles to her. Which reminds me, how about the Garrison woman? I’ll have to see her. What do you think of her?”

“As a suspect? All I can say is that women don’t usually murder when they’re threatened with a miscarriage and under the influence of morphia.”

“Don’t they?” He eyed her with interest. “How much you know! But you’d be surprised, my Hilda. You’d be surprised at what some women can do.”

Eileen was still in her drugged sleep when Hilda, leaving him outside, went into her room. It was not easy to rouse her, and when she did waken she seemed not to know where she was. She sat up in bed, looking dazedly around her.

“How on earth did I get here?” she demanded, blinking in the light.

“You came last night. Don’t you remember?”

She stretched and yawned. Then she smiled maliciously.

“My God, do I remember!” she said. “Did you see their faces?”

But she was not smiling when the inspector came in. She sat up and drawing the bedclothing around her stared at him suspiciously.

“Who are you?” she said. “I don’t know you, do I?”

He looked down at her. A neurotic, he thought, and scared to death. Heaven keep him from neurotic women.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Garrison. I am a police officer. I want to ask you a few questions.”