n hand to get Monday's
breakfast--no questions."

"Left last night, you think?"

Worth shot me a glance of understanding.

"Sometimes he would--after cleaning up from dinner. But he wouldn't have
heard the shot, if that's what you're driving at."

He left me, going out through the hall. My fire burned. I thawed out the
kinks the long, chill ride had put in me. Then Worth hailed; I went out
and found him with a coffee-pot boiling on the gas range, a loaf and a
cold roast set out. He had sand, that boy; in this wretched home-coming,
his manner was neither stricken nor defiant. He seemed only a little
graver than usual as he waited on me, hunting up stuff in places he knew
of to put some variety into our supper.

Where I sat I faced a back window, and my eye was caught by the
appearance of a strange light, quite a little distance from the house,
apparently in another building, but showing as a vague glow on the fog.

"What's down there?" I asked. Worth answered without taking the trouble
to lean forward and look,

"The garage--and the study."

"Huh? The study's separate from the house?" I had been thinking of the
suicide as a thing of this dwelling, an affair in some room within its
walls. Of course Chung would not hear the shot. "Who's down there?"

"Eddie Hughes has a room off the garage."

"He's in it now."

"How do you know?" he asked quickly.

"There's a light--or there was. It's gone now."

"That wouldn't have been Eddie," Worth said. "His room's on the other
side, toward the back street. What you saw was the light from these
windows shining on the fog. Makes queer effects sometimes."

I knew that wasn't it, but I didn't argue with him, only remarked,

"I'd like to have a look at that place, Worth, if you don't mind."

CHAPTER X

A SHADOW IN THE FOG

Again I saw that glow from the Gilbert garage, hanging on the fog; a
luminosity of the fog; saw it disappear as the mist deepened and
shrouded it. But Worth was answering me, and somehow his words seemed
forced;

"Sit tight a minute, Jerry. Have another cup of coffee while I
telephone, then I'll put the roadster in and open up down there. I'll
call you--or you can see my lights."

He left me. I heard him at the instrument in the hall get his number,
talk to some one in a low voice, and then go out the front door; next
thing was the sound of the motor, the glare of its lamps as it rounded
into the driveway and started down back, illuminat