with the children and he waved. She came in to serve him his breakfast and he sat at the kitchen table reading the comics in the morning newspaper while she puttered at the stove.
Not until he finished breakfast did a word pass between them. Then she said, 'I'll bet you'll never guess who was here this morning.'
He made no reply.
'It was that Rabbi Small from the Jewish temple,' she went on. 'You know, the one whose car they found the bag in.'
'What'd he want?'
'He wanted to ask me about the girl.'
'He's got a nerve. You didn't say anything?'
'I talked to him. Why not?'
He looked at her in astonishment. 'Because he's a party to the case and what you know is evidence, that's why not.'
'But he seemed like such a nice sort of young man, not like what you'd expect a rabbi to be. I mean, he didn't have a beard or anything.'
'None of them do these days. Don't you remember the Golds' wedding we went to last year. That rabbi didn't have a beard either.'
'He wasn't even like that, you know, dignified. He was just an ordinary young fellow, like he might be an insurance salesman or a car salesman, but not a fast-talker, just nice and polite. He wanted to see the girl's room.'
'And you showed it to him?'
'Sure I did.'
'The police told you to keep the door shut. How do you know he wasn't planning to take something or rub out a fingerprint or even leave something behind?'
'Because I was with him all the time. He only stayed a couple of seconds altogether.'
'Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to call the police and report it.' He rose.
'But why?'
'Because this is a murder case, and what's in that room is evidence, and he's a party to the case, and he might have been tampering with the evidence. And hereafter, don't you go talking about this case to anybody, you understand?'
'All right.'
'Anybody, get it?'
'All right.'
'I don't want you should say one single, solitary word, you understand.'
'All right, all right. What are you so excited for? You're all red in the face.'
'A guy has a right to have some peace and quiet in his own house,' he raged.
She smiled at him. 'You're just edgy, Joe. C'mon, sit down, baby, and let me get you another cup of coffee.'
He sat down and ducked behind his newspaper. She got a fresh cup and saucer and poured his coffee. She was puzzled and uncertain and worried.
27
The rabbi was not altogether surprised when Hugh Lanigan dropped in that evening.
'I understand you went calling on the Serafinos this morning,' he said.
The young man reddened and nodded.
'You were sleuthing, weren't you, rabbi?' Lanigan's lips twitched in an effort to be stem, although he obviously thought the situation amusing. 'Don't do it, rabbi. You could muddy the trail, and Lord knows it's obscure enough as it is. I might also mention that it could excite suspicion. Mr. Serarino, who called to tell us about it, thought you might have come there to remove something, presumably something incriminating, from the girl's room.'
'I had no idea,' he said contritely. 'I'm sorry.' He hesitated, and then went on timidly, 'I had an idea I wanted to check.'
Lanigan shot him a quick glance. 'Yes?'
The rabbi nodded and went on hurriedly, 'In any sequence of events there's a beginning and a middle and an end. The last time we discussed this case, I'm afraid we started at the end, with the handbag. I suggest you would get further if you started at the beginning.'
'And what do you call the beginning? The girl's getting pregnant?'
'That could be the beginning, but we have no real certainty that was connected with the girl's death.'
'Then where would you start?'
'If I were conducting the investigation,' said the rabbi, 'I would first want to know why she left the house after Bronstein brought her home.'
Lanigan considered the suggestion and then shrugged his shoulders. 'She could have left for any number of reasons, to mail a letter perhaps.'
'Then why take off her dress?'
'It was raining at the time,' Lanigan observed. 'Maybe she didn't want to get the dress wet.'
'Then she would simply have slipped on a coat or raincoat-as she did. Besides, mail is not collected until nine-thirty the next morning. I looked at the box.'
'All right, then she didn't go out to mail a letter. Maybe she just wanted to take a short walk, to get some air.'
'In the rain? After she had been out all afternoon and evening? Besides, the same objection holds-why would she take off her dress? That's really the basic question: why did she take off her dress?'
'All right, why did she?'
'Why, to go to bed,' announced the rabbi.
Lanigan stared at the triumphant look on his face. Finally he said, 'I don't get it. What are you driving at?'
The rabbi could not help showing some impatience. 'The girl comes home from a night out. It's late and she has to get up early the next morning. So she starts to prepare for bed. She takes off her dress and hangs it up carefully in the closet. Normally she would have gone on to take off the rest of the things, but something interrupted her in the process. I suggest it could only have been a message of some sort.'
'You mean she got a telephone call?'
Rabbi Small shook his head. 'She couldn't have because there is an extension upstairs and Mrs. Serafino would have heard the phone ring.'
'Then how?'
'The radio. According to Mrs. Serafino she had it on all the time. With girls of that age, turning on the radio is a conditioned reflex. As automatic as breathing. I suggest she turned it on as soon as she came in.'
'All right, so she turned on the radio. What sort of message could she have received?'
'There's a news round-up from WSAM, the Salem station, at 12:35. The last few minutes are devoted to local news.'
'And you think she heard a bit of local news that sent her scurrying out into the rain? Why?'
'Because she had to meet someone.'
'At that hour? How could she know where to meet this someone. I know that program-it doesn't run personals. And if she was meeting someone, why didn't she put on a dress first? Really, rabbi-'
'She didn't have time to put on a dress because she had to get there by one o'clock,' said the rabbi quietly 'And she knew he would be there because that was the time he was supposed to ring in at the police box.'
Lanigan stared at him. 'You mean-Bill Norman?'
The rabbi nodded.
'But that's impossible. He just became engaged to Bud Ramsay's girl. I went to the engagement party. It was
