uld have turned
Walters over for trial by family court-martial. How do you like Davies,
by the way?"

"Oh, he's cute," Gladys told him. "One of your operatives, isn't he?"

"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.