“Now what in the world gave you an idea like that?” he asked, as though humoring the vagaries of a child.

“Well, I suspected something of the sort from the alacrity with which you produced him, before Walters was out of the house,” she said.  “And nobody could be as perfect a stage butler as he is.  But what really convinced me was coming into the library, a little while ago, and finding him squatting on the top of the spiral, covering Humphrey Goode with a small but particularly evil-looking automatic.”

Rand chuckled.  “What did you do?”

“Oh, I climbed up and squatted beside him,” she replied.  “I got there just as you were telling Goode what he could do with his bribe.  You know, with one thing and another, Goode’s beginning to become unamusing.”  She smoked in silence for a moment.  “I ought to be indignant with you, filling my house with spies,” she said.  “But under the circumstances, I’m afraid I’m thankful, instead.  Your op’s a good egg, by the way; he’s on his way to bring us some drinks.”

“I ought to be sore at you, retaining me into a mess like this and telling me nothing,” Rand told her.  “What was the idea, anyhow?  You wanted me to investigate your husband’s murder, all along, didn’t you?”

“I—­I hadn’t a thing to go on,” she replied.  “I was afraid, if I came out and told you what I suspected, that you’d think it was just another case of feminine dam-foolishness, and dismiss it as such.  I knew it wasn’t an accident; Lane didn’t have accidents with guns.  And if he’d wanted to kill himself, he’d have done it and left a note explaining why he had to.  But I didn’t have a single fact to give you.  I thought that if you came here and started working on the collection, you’d find something.”

“You should have taken a chance and told me what you suspected,” Rand said.  “I’ve taken a lot of cases on flimsier grounds than this.  The fact is, you practically told me it was murder, when you were talking to me in my office.”

“Jeff, I never was what the soap-operas call being ‘in love’ with Lane,” she continued.  “But he was wonderful to me.  He gave me everything a girl who grew up in a sixteen-dollar apartment over a fruit store could want.  And then somebody killed him, just as you’d step on a cockroach, because he got in the way of a business deal.  I’m glad to be able to spend money to help catch whoever did it.  It won’t help him, but it’ll make me feel a lot better....  You will catch him, won’t you?”

Rand nodded.  “I don’t know whether he’ll ever go to trial and be convicted,” he said.  “I don’t think he will.  But you can take my word for it; he won’t get away with it.  Tomorrow, I think the lid’s going to blow off.  Maybe you’d better be away from home when it does.  Take Nelda and Geraldine with you, and go somewhere.  There’s likely to be some uproar.”

“Well, Nelda and Geraldine and I are going to church, in the morning,” Gladys said.  “It’s a question of face.  We have a rented pew—­Lane was quite active in church work—­and none of us are willing to let ourselves get squeezed out of it.  We all go; even Geraldine manages to drag herself to the Lord’s House through an alcoholic fog.  And we’ll have to be back in time for dinner.  It would look funny if we weren’t.”