Fascinated, I hovered in the hall, not able to tear myself away.
“The Liberry case, what was that?”
He stalled. “Well, I don’t know much about that.”
“But this makes everything different! Someone from back there—someone who had reason to hate Mrs. Garr for something she’d done—would have been a reason for murdering her. Think how many there must be! Have you thought of that?”
“I’ve heard it mentioned,” he admitted cautiously.
But I couldn’t get another bit of information out of him.
I went into my own part of the house and barricaded my doors.
There went my previous ideas—such as they were—all upset! This put a new slant on everything. Maybe the motive wasn’t hidden money. The Hallorans were undoubtedly mistaken as to the amount of money Mrs. Garr had hidden. Maybe the motive was hate—revenge! Girls have relatives. If Mrs. Garr had run a big establishment, there might be scores who hated her, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters and sweethearts of the girls she’d kept. Wives of men who’d gone there. The girls themselves. The men themselves. You couldn’t tell. It might be anyone.
Of course it was a long time ago. The person would have to be past thirty-five, at least. Nineteen nineteen was eighteen years ago. Hodge Kistler was a little young for that, not much over thirty. But the Hallorans, in their forties. Could Mrs. Garr have debauched her own niece? It seemed impossible—but maybe they weren’t related. Perhaps the hold the Hallorans had on Mrs. Garr was other than blood. Perhaps that was why they came to her for money. But the lectures had been very “auntly”; she hadn’t sounded as if she were being blackmailed.
The others. Mr. Grant. Mr. Grant was almost as old as Mrs. Garr. Mr. Buffingham. The Wallers. Mrs. Tewman. They were all in their forties or early fifties. They were all the right age.
It took me back to the beginning again. They could all be suspected. And again, Mr. Kistler seemed the least likely. Judging by the results I’d had when I’d thought that before, I was probably due to find out he had been born in Mrs. Garr’s house of vice. Or that Mrs. Garr had ruined his father.
The problem of who had killed Mrs. Garr had once seemed fairly simple: a prowler caught in his prowling had been such an obvious explanation. But how complicated this business of Mrs. Garr’s past made it! Now the possibilities were almost endless.
I’d read enough detective stories to know it was always the least likely person who went in for murder.
That made Mr. Kistler it.
Well, I didn’t care if he was it. A man who amused himself as Mr. Kistler did—a chaser, a sleeper-around! And I’d once actually thought I liked him! He was frightfully amusing. That time he . . .
I quit smiling, to bite into my thoughts again. If Mr. Kistler’s story about Friday night was true, then he had an alibi for the time when Mrs. Garr probably came back to the house. But it meant he was an extremely worthless character.
If his story wasn’t true, then he must have had something to do with Mrs. Garr’s death. Hiding that ticket couldn’t mean much else. It would also mean that, for certain, Mrs. Garr had been murdered. I couldn’t think of any way her railroad ticket could have come into Mr. Kistler’s possession if she had died a natural death.
If he had murdered her, then his story about the girl wasn’t true—just a faked-up alibi, made awful to sound more convincing—and then I wouldn’t have so much reason to think his character worthless. He might have had a lovely motive, such as revenging a sister.
I caught myself hoping he had murdered Mrs. Garr.
It made me so disgusted with logic I almost decided I’d give it up forever.
—
I GAVE UP PUZZLING over Mrs. Garr for the time being anyway; I went to bed.
I was glad there was a policeman in the house. Just before I dropped asleep I opened one eye. I’d suddenly thought who the other officer must be and why he’d ducked. He didn’t want me to see him. I was being shadowed. He was watching me.
11
I WOKE TO THE telephone’s ringing, and Mrs. Tewman in the hall, yelling:
“Mr. Kistler, Mr. Kistler!”
“He don’t answer,” she shouted into the phone. She added crossly, after an interval, “All ri’, I’ll knock.”
Probably, I thought sleepily, I was the only person in the house who knew where Mr. Kistler was—unless the lean-faced policeman was still on duty. No, Mr. Kistler would not answer the knock on his door. What did it matter who called him? Yes, it might matter. It might be that girl. Toots.
I realized it was up to me to be noble. I wrapped my negligee around me in the yellow sunshine and went out into the hall.
Sure enough, the policeman who knew Mr. Kistler’s whereabouts was gone. We had a new guard. This one sat on the davenport because he probably couldn’t get into the chair. He was a fat lump; he didn’t say a word, he was just there, staring with his round blue eyes. We were having a wonderful opportunity to look over the Gilling City police force.
Mrs. Tewman, upstairs, was pounding on a door. I picked up the dangling receiver.
“Hello, this is Mrs. Dacres. I—”
“Oh, hello,” a young man’s voice replied cordially. “I’ve heard about you. Where’s Hodge?”
“Who’re you?”
“I’m Les Trowbridge. You know. His partner. The Guide. What’s he doing—celebrating the murder?”
“Wildly. In jail.”
“Oh, my God! Oh, my—God. What’s he want to get himself in there for on a day like this?”
“He doesn’t. It wasn’t voluntary.”
“You mean he had the nerve to go out and get drunk and bust up the town last night?”
“Oh no. It was the murder.”
“Now listen, Mrs. Dacres. You can’t tell me they’ve
