“In New York.  Now Melis, I’ve an idea that you know something about the crime Judson Clark was accused of.  You intimated that at the inquest.”

“Mrs. Lucas killed him.”

“So she says,” Bassett said easily.

The valet jumped and stared.

“She admits it, as the result of an accident.  She also admits hiding the revolver where you found it.”

“Then you do not need me.”

“I’m not so sure of that.”

The valet was puzzled.

“I want you to think back, Melis.  You saw her go down the stairs, sometime before the shot.  Later you were confident she had hidden the revolver, and you made a second search for it.  Why?  You hadn’t heard her testimony at the inquest then.  Clark had run away.  Why didn’t you think Clark had done it?”

“Because I thought she was having an affair with another man.  I have always thought she did it.”

Bassett nodded.

“I thought so.  What made you think that?”

“I’ll tell you.  She went West without a maid, and Mr. Clark got a Swedish woman from a ranch near to look after her, a woman named Thorwald.  She lived at her own place and came over every day.  One night, after Mrs. Thorwald had started home, I came across her down the road near the irrigator’s house, and there was a man with her.  They didn’t hear me behind them, and he was giving her a note for some one in the house.”

“Why not for one of the servants?”

“That’s what I thought then, sir.  It wasn’t my business.  But I saw the same man later on, hanging about the place at night, and once I saw her with him—­Mrs. Lucas, I mean.  That was in the early evening.  The gentlemen were out riding, and I’d gone with one of the maids to a hill to watch the moon rise.  They were on some rocks, below in the canyon.”

“Did you see him?”

“I think it was the same man, if that’s what you mean.  I knew something queer was going on, after that, and I watched her.  She went out at night more than once.  Then I told Donaldson there was somebody hanging round the place, and he set a watch.”

“Fine.  Now we’ll go to the night Lucas was shot.  Was the Thorwald woman there?”

“She had started home.”

“Leaving Mrs. Lucas packing alone?”

“Yes.  I hadn’t thought of that.  The Thorwald woman heard the shot and came back.  I remember that, because she fainted upstairs and I had to carry her to a bed.”

“I see.  Now about the revolver.”

“I located it the first time I looked for it.  Donaldson and the others had searched the billiard room.  So I tried the big room.  It was under a chair.  I left it there, and concealed myself in the room.  She, Mrs. Lucas, came down late that night and hunted for it.  Then she hid it where I got it later.”

“I wish I knew, Melis, why you didn’t bring those facts out at the inquest.”