Free Wall by Mary Roberts Rinehart

like it, and I thought it had been carefully worked over since I saw it. Worried as I was I hastily powdered and went downstairs, to find the painter in the hall, still in his sweater and old slacks.
    “Well,” he said cheerfully, “how about it? I’ve made you a sort of double-or-quits proposition. It’s worth about seven-fifty, I’ve asked fifteen; but you don’t have to take it at all.” Then he looked at me closely. “See here,” he said, “you’re not sick, are you? You don’t look right to me.”
    “We’ve had a little trouble. At least I’m afraid so. I—”
    I must have looked faint, for he put an arm around me and caught me.
    “None of that,” he said. “Come into this room, whatever it is, and sit down. And if we can find that high and mighty butler of yours a little brandy wouldn’t hurt you. Or me,” he added, with a smile.
    He put me into a chair and stood over me until the brandy came and I drank it. Only then did he relax and sit down.
    “Do you want to talk about it? Or don’t you?” he said soberly. “Sometimes it helps.”
    I felt better by that time. I told him about Juliette, and he listened attentively. When I came to the end, however, he surprised me.
    “Did you really care a lot about her?” he said abruptly.
    “No. That’s partly why I feel the way I do.”
    “Now listen, my child,” he said. “The world’s full of people grieving for somebody they cared about. It’s sheer sentimentality to worry about the ones we don’t. If anything’s happened to her, be sorry but for God’s sake don’t feel guilty.”
    He went soon after; abruptly, as if he had said more than he should. But I felt comforted, in a way, and almost calm. I stood at a window and saw him going up the driveway, his head up and his big shoulders square and self-reliant. But some of the vigor seemed to have gone out of him. He walked like a tired man.
    I watched him until he was out of sight. Not until he had gone did I remember that I had not paid him, or even asked him his name. I found that later, however. It was in the corner of the picture, and it was Pell: Allen Pell.
    At nine o’clock that night we still had no news. Jordan was shut fast in her room, and the one glimpse I had of her showed me a stony face and swollen reddened eyes. I sent her a tray at dinnertime but she refused it. But I myself could not eat. Arthur had not reached either his office or his hotel, and there seemed to be nobody at the yacht club.
    Then at nine o’clock Tony Rutherford came in, looking grave.
    “Sit down, Marcia,” he said. “How long have you been walking that floor? You look all in.”
    He waited until I had settled myself. Then very deliberately he lit a cigarette.
    “They haven’t found her,” he said. “But there are one or two things—See here, did she have any enemies around here that you know of?”
    “I suppose plenty of people didn’t like her.”
    “Still,” he persisted, “she hasn’t been here for six or seven years, has she? That cuts out the new people. Look here, Marcia. Did she wreck any lives around here?” He smiled, but I saw that he was deadly serious. “You know what I mean.”
    “Only Arthur’s and mine. And Mother’s last days on earth.”
    He explained then. They had not found her, but beside the trail and not far from the jumps they had found her riding hat and gloves beside a log, where she must have sat down to rest. And there was a cigarette smeared with lipstick, as though she had been smoking. Apparently the mare had stood there for some time. Unfortunately Ed Smith and his men had mussed up the trail itself.
    They had sent for some bloodhounds on the mainland, he said, and the sheriff, Russell Shand, was bringing them over.
    “Have you notified Arthur?” Tony asked.
    “I’ve tried to. Mary Lou says he’s been out with the sloop, and I can’t raise the yacht club.”
    “He may be back. Suppose I try again?”
    He did, and this time he got the night