Free Murder Is Suggested by Frances and Richard Lockridge

like him much,” Elwell said. “You know about Liz?”
    â€œHis daughter? Yes. Elizabeth.”
    â€œElizabeth,” Elwell said. “Everybody called her Liz. My time they’d have called her Beth, maybe Betty. Nobody thought Liz was pretty enough. Shows how we—” He brought himself back; shook his head dolefully at this new evidence of his tendency to meander. “This man she was going to marry,” he said. “Rosco Finch. Hell of a name, ain’t it? Says he wasn’t driving when it happened. Jamey thought he was. Matter of fact, Jamey’s been trying to prove he was. Hired some detective fellows.”
    Bill said that that was interesting—damn interesting. And what had made Jameson Elwell think that?
    â€œMaybe,” Jameson Elwell’s brother said, “mostly because he wanted to. He realized that himself. On the other hand, there are tricks about driving a Jag. Person who’s used to—oh, say a Buick. A Cadillac—has to learn the tricks. As far as Jamey knew, Liz hadn’t learned them.”
    â€œBut,” Bill said, “would he know?”
    There was that. Jameson Elwell had realized there was that. On the other hand, he and his daughter had been good friends; usually, when something new interested her, she talked about it to him. And, she was interested in cars. And—she hadn’t talked about Jaguars.
    It was, certainly, anything but conclusive. Foster Elwell realized that; his brother had realized that.
    â€œMostly, I guess,” Foster Elwell said, “it was just a hunch of Jamey’s. Partly because he didn’t want to think his daughter had killed two people, and herself, by being—irresponsible. But there was more than that—I’ll give Jamey that, and that he knew about the way minds work. His job, you know.”
    Bill knew. He said, “Yes.”
    â€œOrdinary person,” Elwell said, “tells you somebody else is a certain kind of person, and you say to yourself, ‘That’s just what he thinks.’ Know what I mean? Jamey said it and, damn it all, you believed him. At the bottom, I suppose, he was just sure that his daughter wouldn’t drink too much if she was going to drive, and wouldn’t drive too fast for conditions and wouldn’t lose her nerve. Tell you how he put it. He said she was ‘emotionally’ a good driver. And that drivers like that don’t go over the top of a hill at eighty, particularly at night.”
    â€œMiss Elwell hadn’t been drinking,” Bill said. “At least, she had been, but not enough to matter. Unless she was particularly susceptible.”
    â€œNot Liz,” Elwell said. “Show me one of them is, nowadays. I don’t say she ever drank much. But now and then—hell, now and then everybody has a few, if they’re normal. Liz never showed anything. Know what I mean?”
    â€œYes,” Bill said. “But—it isn’t much to go on, Mr. Elwell. Your brother was fond of his daughter, probably. Didn’t like having to remember—well, that she was irresponsible. Had killed a couple of innocent people.”
    â€œSure,” Elwell said. “I said that. Also—he realized that himself. Wasn’t much he didn’t realize. Of course—the car was this fellow Finch’s. Mostly a man owns one of those jobs, he likes to drive it himself. Why he owns it, as much as anything. Also, he was driving when they left that evening, Jamey said. He looked down from upstairs and watched them drive off, and Finch was driving. Doesn’t prove anything about who drove later on. I’ll give you that. Look—I don’t suppose there’s anything to this. Only—put Finch on the spot a bit if Jamey was right, and could prove it. Wouldn’t it? Lose his license, for one thing.”
    â€œMore than that,” Bill said. “Possibly more than that, anyway. Might be vehicular