"So I brought Dorothy home with me, of course," said his mother. "Where have you been all day? Have you had any food?"
"You say they flew?" Johnny almost could not get his next
words out. "You don't think they went by way of Nevada?"
Dorothy looked shocked. His mother said reproachfully,
"You can't think Nan would elopel The day Emily was
buried? Nan wouldn't do that."
Dorotliy said, "At least, she didn't. She called me and they're safe on the ground in Hestia." She watched him.
Johnny sat limply down. Maybe there wasn't as much time as he'd thought there would be. He was scared.
"Have they ... set a date?" he asked painfully, looking at nothing but his mother's carpet.
"I'll be in charge of the wedding," Dorothy said, "whenever it is."
"When will it be?" he insisted.
"Oh, I suppose soon. Nan won't want anything but a very simple wedding. No splash. Because of Emily . . ."
"Simple and soon, huh?" he murmured.
Dorothy turned and cards fell out of the pattern on the table and landed on the floor. "What's the matter, Johrmy?"
Johnny's father began patiently to pick up the cards.
"I've been with Roderick Grimes," said Johnny, "and he gave me a job."
"Well?" said his mother impatiently. "You know, Johnny, you are going to have to get used to the idea that Nan w going to marry this man."
Johnny's gi-een eyes flickered at her. "Grimes wants me to dig up the dope on another old case. Happened years.^go.-In Hestia." ^
"For goodness sakesl"'his mother said.
His father stopped shuffling cards.
"A young woman named Christy McCauley was hit on the head one night—in the Barter's house."
He heard them gasp.
"Her husband's in prison for doing the deed," Johnny tried to be Hght, "but Grimes thinks—oh, you know, the usual. More to it than meets the eye."
"Johnny, you can't do this," his mother said.
"Yes, I can, Ma," he replied gravely. "If I don't, somebody else will."
"You should let somebody else, then," his mother said severely. "You, of all people, as close as you've been to Nan, can't go down there and bother those Bartees about an old tragic thing they'd surely rather forget."
Dorothy had been sitting very still indeed. She said, "Was the murdered woman related to Dick?"
"No, not directly. She was related to old Mrs. Bartee."
"Is old Mrs. Bartee still alive?" asked his mother.
''Yes she is," said Dorothy. "Did "Then, Johnny, you absolutely cam But Dorothy said, "You don't wani family, do you, Johnny?''
He opened his mouth, took air, do She said briskly, "How and when a "Driving. In the morning." "I'U go, too.''
Johnny didn't know what to say. "What's going on?" said Barbara Si Dorothy leaned forward. "It's jus all know that you did go to see At least I know it, and I think your worried about this old murder ca: didn't want Nan mixed up with tha the matter?"
Johnny felt the red in his face. ] "I guess," he said, "this is what yc tuition."
"You may as well give up," his J deal out a solitaire game.
"All right. O.K. I'll admit I took rights of it."
"In what way?" his mother frowne Johnny searched for a stout lie t< mother's intuition. "There's an idea, tee family kinda drove this poor hu way they froze him out. I mean, il pie . .."
"Ummm," said his mother. "It's tn thing about them, do we?" "It's too late." said Dorothv.
He rose.
"That's awful early for you, Dotty," he wen "Maybe you could write Nan and fix it up to g day or so?"
Dorothy was looking up at him. She said rather go with you, Johnny." The phrase rockec was an echo in it somewhere.
His mother said, "Dorothy, you go right si this minute. I'll pack for you."
The women scurried.
"Do you give up?" his father said to John] stood there. Johnny rubbed his head.
There must be such a thing as male intuitior later. Because his father said to him quietly, step, son."
In the old frame house that stood, smothere< big trees for miles around, the nurse was he] lady to bed in the front room downstairs.
"Such a s^veet little girl, isn't she, Mrs. BarteCi
The old lady's teeth were in the glass and she to smile. She mumbled through her soft old li mire to have a young and pretty face in the he did. There was Josephine. There was Christy."
"And Miz Bianche."
(The old lady didn't - include Miz Blanche.] is Nan. Nan. It doesn't suit her."
"Short names are all the rage," the nurse said.
In the huge parlor, the other side of tf Blanche Bartee said to her husband Bartholc can't im.agine Dick married to that child. And I can't imagine . . ."
"You don't think he's changed? You don't think he's settled? Dick makes you nervous?"
The bracelets were still. "No, no," she murmured nervously.
Upstairs in the hall, at the door of the big back bedroom, Dick said to his fiancee, "You're tired. Been a long bad day. Sleep well."
"I think I will sleep," Nan said. "I feel at home here. Isn't that strange?"
"No."
"Why not?" Nan spoke dreamily.
"Because wherever I am is your home, love." He was murmuring. "Marry me. Why must we wait?"
"Just a httle while," Nan said. "Not too long, darling."
Dorothy wasn't a chatterer today. Mile after mile slipped undre the car's wheels in the misty morning and she asked no questions, either. But she was a presence. Johnny couldn't forget that she was there. Finally he said, "What will you do if the Bartees won't take you in?"
"I'll stay in a motel."
Something about this stubbornness pleased him. "Then maybe you don't think it's too late."
"It's late," she said.
"What do you think of Dick Bartee?"
"I think he's—been around."
"Is he really in love with Nan?"
"Shes in love," Dorothy said crisply. "He gave her an awful rush. She was too used to you, Johnny."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh ... I don't know. He's too old for Nan."
"Thirty-two. I'm twenty-eight, of course."
"You're too old for her, too," said Dorothy tartly.
Johnny looked sideways. "You're on the warpath," he said.
"Oh, Johnny, don't—"
"Don't what?"
"Don't go round the mulberry bush. And don't ever take a he-detector test, either."
;'Whatl"
"How do you suppose I knew you were lying about not seeing Emily?" Johnny remembered her head on his breast when his heart had jumped. Dorothy now put her cool
fingers gently on his wrist. "You just made up this job with Roderick Griines. Didn't you?"
He knew his heart jumped again. He took his hand off the wheel, turned it, and put her hand away. "I've got the job," he said sternly. "And none of your tricks."
She was contrite. "All right, Johnny. Don't tell me anything more, if you don't want to."
"Oh I want to," he said in a moment. "We're on the same side. Maybe I need you."
"Maybe," she murmured. Her head was turned away.
"This Christy McCauley was twenty-two years old," Johnny began. "She got killed by a blow, and her husband was caught with the weapon in his hand. I talked to him in prison."
"Oh?"
"I think ni have to tell you this," Johnny went on judiciously. "He thinks Dick Bartee did it."
"I see," said Dorothy at last. "So that's it." She straightened. "Did Emily know that? How could she know that?"
"Don't know," he said quickly. "She wanted me to—try and find out—"
"Why didn't you tell us?" Dorothy denianded.
"Because look, Dot—there's a good possibility this^manr McCauley, may be just psycho. There's no real reason to be-Heve what he says."
"You should have told us," Dorothy said stonily.
"I . . . What about Nanr
"What about her?" said Dorothy. If anybody^ thought my fiance had ever killed anybody, Vd want to know about it."
Johnny winced. But he could not tell her any more. He could not tell her who Nan was. He had promised.