Another Woman's House by Mignon G. Eberhart Page B

of his silence. She turned in his arms.
    His face was as blank as a wall; it was as if he had retreated behind that wall.
    He said, from an incredibly remote distance, “It would be better for you to stay here for awhile, Myra. Until things are more settled. Until, well, somebody murdered Jack Manders and they’re going to try to find out exactly who it was. And they have three suspects. Webb. Tim. And me.”

CHAPTER 8
    I T WAS, AS A matter of fact, salutary, like cold water in the face of a distraught and half-hysterical person. It drew her instantly from the future to the urgency, and indeed the threat, of the present. “You!”
    â€œWell—yes. I’m sorry, Myra. I thought you knew that.”
    â€œNot about you! Not … Is that why the Governor looked so—so …” Hard? Implacable? “ Suspicious! ” she cried.
    â€œI thought you knew,” said Richard again.
    â€œNo, no. I only thought of Tim. Oh, Richard, they can’t suspect you!”
    â€œI wish I hadn’t told you. But then you’d know tomorrow when the D. A. gets around to us. Or as soon as you had a chance to think. And you must believe me there’s no real evidence; they have to have suspects, that’s all, and …”
    She cried sharply, “But they never questioned you.”
    â€œOh, yes. They questioned.”
    â€œBut why? Because they thought Jack and Alice … ?”
    â€œThat was the theory. My wife, my house—my gun. But I didn’t kill him, Myra, and neither did Tim. So I promise you I’ll not let either Tim or me be railroaded …” Again she brushed away his attempt to reassure her. “You were not here! You were away! You didn’t come home until after the murder. The police were already here. You had an alibi. …”
    â€œI had an alibi of sorts. The conductor on the late train I took out from New York thought—rather vaguely—that he remembered having taken my ticket. I got here to the house after twelve. Jack was shot about ten-thirty. I could have come home about then, shot him from the hall or the terrace without Alice’s seeing me, escaped through the woods, and later returned home again, arriving this time openly and boldly at the front door. To find the police already here. It could have been done.”
    â€œDid they say that? Did they accuse you of it?”
    â€œIt was suggested and I was questioned. But you see then Webb told his story. He said he had seen Alice kill him. That was the big, the important factor. Nobody after that was really suspected by the police.”
    â€œNobody could believe that if you had killed him you’d let Alice go to prison.”
    â€œYou heard everything the Governor said. I think that the verdict was a surprise in an odd way to everybody because they had expected her to be let off, whether or not she did it. I might have reasoned, you see, the same way. That I, in a trial, wouldn’t have a chance, but that she, a woman, young, beautiful, would never be convicted.” Suddenly he smiled. “But I didn’t. So put all this out of your mind.”
    She said somberly, “Is it—horrible? The investigation, questions …”
    â€œIt isn’t nice, but they’ll not question you.”
    â€œBut you had no motive, no …”
    â€œThere was no provable motive for Alice to have killed him. If there had been anything in the nature of an affair between him and Alice, why, then I’d have had a motive, according to them.”
    It was merely hypothetical; it wasn’t fact; but even as a motive it had been strongly enough supported by the existing circumstances (and mainly by Webb Manders’ fraudulent testimony) that in a trial, in a court of justice, the jury had considered it so likely and substantial in its claims that they had accepted it, and had sent a woman to prison for life.
    Richard said abruptly, “But believe