'This Christy McCauley was twenty-two years old,' Johnny began. 'She got killed by a blow, and her husband was caught with the weapon in his hand. I talked to him in prison.'
'Oh?'
'I think ni have to tell you this,' Johnny went on judiciously. 'He thinks Dick Bartee did it.'
'I see,' said Dorothy at last. 'So that's it.' She straightened. 'Did Emily know that? How could she know that?'
'Don't know,' he said quickly. 'She wanted me to—try and find out—'
'Why didn't you tell us?' Dorothy denianded.
'Because look, Dot—there's a good possibility this^manr McCauley, may be just psycho. There's no real reason to be-Heve what he says.'
'You should have told us,' Dorothy said stonily.
'I . . . What about Nanr
'What about her?' said Dorothy. If anybody^ thought my fiance had ever killed anybody, Vd want to know about it.'
Johnny winced. But he could not tell her any more. He could not tell her who Nan was. He had promised.
Dorothy said, 'I don't see what you think you're going to do. The Bartees aren't going to break down and tell you a lot of stuff that never came out before. Dick isn't going to admit it, if he ever killed anybody. You'll have to tell Nan the whole business, Johnny, because that is all you will be able to do.'
Johnny said angrily, 'I am not going to tell her unless I've got a lot more reason to think there's something to it. And you're not going to tell her imtil I say so.'
Dorothy said nothing,
'Promise me that, Dot, or I'll—'
'^ouni what?'' she asked coolly.
They drove in silence a mile or two.
Johnny said at last, 'Well, what are we going to do? In your independent judgment.' He smiled at her. 'You've got rights, Dot. I'm sorry.'
She said, siuprising him, 'I can see how hard it is—for you. You are going to look pretty jealous and mean, aren't you?'
'That's right,' he said grimly, in a moment.
'How long ago wa5 this murder?' she asked.
'Seventeen years,' he snapped. Dorothy had made him smart and sting.
'But Dick was just a kidi'
'Fifteen years old.'
'But that's impossible!'
'Nope, not impossible. I haven't told you about another talk I had . . .' So now he gave her the George Rush eye-view of Dick Bartee.
'Anything else you haven't told me?' she asked him mildly when he had finished.
He reflected. Couldn't talk about the money. That would come too close to connecting Nan with the Bartees. He said, 'Something else, one way or the other, is what I'm after.'
Dorothy was silent a long time. Then she said, 'I wonder why you don't trust me.'
'I still don't know what you're going to do,' he said in exasperation. 'Look, if I were positive . . . but I'm not. Dotty. I just don't know. I want to protect Nan from any kind of hurt, and it's hard for me. You're right, I'm going to look jealous and mean if I tell all this. Yet I've got to know. Why can't you see that?'
'I see that,' said Dorothy in a moment, gravely. 'I'll be quiet, Johnny. Not that I agree, but because I'd be a fool to do what you don't want me to do, when I know there's something more you haven't told me.'
He didn't speak.
'I will trust you,'' she said. 'I know you always have looked out for Nan.'
He felt relieved. He picked up her left hand. He wanted to make her know he was grateful, so he started to raise it to his hps. Dorothy snatched it away. 'The Bartees might
throw you out,' she said brightly, 'but if they let me in, I'll be your inside spy.'
'It's not a very pretty job,' he said ruefully.
'What do we care about that,' she said, 'if Nan's engaged to a murderer?'
He couldn't answer.
Five times it was on the end of Johnny's tongue to tell her the rest of it. Five times he stopped before he told.
Aunt Emily's face. There goes the meaning of my life. The face of McCauley. // I have been wrong, I pray the Lord. Dick Bartee's face. No reason that I know . . . The old man's letter, kind and wise . . . the little girl all happiness.
