“I’m sorry,” Lowry said. “You see, I don’t think that man who did the killing and stole the car was McKay. It makes me angry to hear it.”

“Oh,” she said indifferently. McKay’s tragedy didn’t mean a thing to her. She had too many woes of her own to care very much about anybody else’s.

“When the doctor arrived,” Lowry said, “he took care of the baby and left. You didn’t happen to see him to the door, did you?”

“No, I stayed close to the baby.”

She was getting impatient. Lowry realized that in a few minutes she would probably ask him to leave. He had taken up plenty of her time already.

He rose wearily and looked in the direction of the crib.

In a gentle voice he asked, “How’s he been feeling lately?”

She shrugged in a gesture of eloquent hopelessness. “They keep coming back, those attacks. They’ll kill him yet. I know it, he’ll never live to be old enough to walk or talk.” The tears came to her eyes again.

“Bad attacks like the one he had that night—he’s been having them since the doctor was here?”

“Only one more like the one he had that night, thank God.”

Lowry sat down again. The woman looked at him peculiarly.

“When was that?” he asked with new urgency in his voice.

“One night about a week after the other one, I guess.”

“And did you call Dr. Clayton again?”

“Yes, but I suppose I was expecting too much from him. He couldn’t come out here that night. He said it would be all right if I carried the baby to the hospital. But I was afraid. It was a cold night and I didn’t want the baby to catch a chill. I begged the doctor to come out here. He hung up on me. I can’t blame him for that. We never could pay him anything. And it was awfully late, like the last time.”

“What did you do?”

“I could only do one thing. I wrapped the baby up and took him down to the hospital. They took care of him. He was practically purple all over by the time I got there.”

Lowry got up again and started toward the door. “Thanks awfully,” he said. “You’ve been a great help to me, Mrs. Lawrence. I’m grateful for the time you’ve just spent. And I hope the baby feels better.”

He contemplated giving her some money. But he decided against it. She was a poor woman, but she had her pride, and it would only humiliate and anger her if he handed her money. It was far better to mail her some cash in a plain envelope. Maybe she would know who it was from, but more likely she would just regard it as a gift from God.