Free Rex Stout by The Mountain Cat

shook. “Looks like a smart colt. If he’s staying I guess I’ll be getting back over to Amy’s. Would you mind handing me those shoes?”
    Dillon stooped for them, gallantly offered to put them on and did so, using the handle of a teaspoon. She thanked him, stamped with each foot, grimacing, told Clara not to worry and that she would phone in case she heard anything from Lem, and departed. Dillon went to open the front door for her. When he returned he moved the kitchen chair around and sat on it and said, “That was Mrs. Lemuel Sammis?”
    Clara nodded.
    “I hear she’s clever.”
    “I guess she is.”
    “What did she want?”
    “She’s my godmother. Delia’s too. She wanted to cheer me up and make me eat.”
    Dillon frowned. He looked as if he needed fully asmuch cheering up as Clara did. “I tried to get you on the phone three or four times.”
    “I haven’t been going to the phone. Mr. Sammis told me not to.”
    “When did you see him?”
    “Down at the sheriffs office about seven o’clock. They had me there asking me questions, and when he came he made them stop.” Clara shifted on the bench to look straight at him. “He advised me not to see anyone, too. I don’t mind seeing you, but I suppose I shouldn’t be answering questions. Have you seen her?”
    “No. Sammis has frozen me out. Harvey Anson has been retained as her lawyer. They won’t let me see her. I didn’t learn about it until breakfast time, when I looked at the paper. It damn near laid me out, after—” He stopped.
    “After what?”
    “Nothing. I’ve been trying to get to her for over two hours. Welch, the deputy warden, told me a little while ago she was asleep and his wife was with her. Have you seen her?”
    “Yes.” Clara swallowed. “They let me be with her nearly half an hour, after Mr. Sammis came.”
    “What did she say?”
    “She said—she told me where she went and what she did last evening, and of course she said she didn’t shoot Jackson, but any fool would know that.”
    Dillon stared. “Do you mean to say you think she didn’t do it?”
    Clara stared back and said with quiet bitterness, “My God.”
    “My God what?”
    “Do
you
think Delia would murder a man?”
    “No. I didn’t think so. But maybe I know thingsabout it you don’t know. Have you seen your uncle? Quinby Pellett?”
    “Yes, I saw him at the jail. What about him?”
    “Didn’t he tell you anything?”
    “He told me he knew Delia didn’t shoot Jackson. Naturally, since he has a decent share of brains. What else could he tell me?”
    “Nothing if he didn’t want to. Do you know where Delia’s handbag is? Did she have it with her and did they take it?”
    Clara’s mouth opened and then closed again. She regarded him with narrowed eyes. “What do you know about her handbag?”
    “I know there was a paper in it that would help to convict her, with my name on it.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “In my office yesterday morning she took it from the handbag and read it to me and put it back again.”
    “A paper that would help … to convict her?”
    “Yes.”
    Clara shoved the untouched plate away, so suddenly that one of the eggs skidded onto the table. Throughout her childhood and girlhood it had been a truism in the Brand family that Clara had no nerves, but she too had tragically lost a father and a mother … and now this … Disregarding the egg, she slid off the end of the bench, stood up, and said quietly, “I think you had better go. If you’re a big enough fool to think she did it, or a big enough something—I don’t know what. Go and look for that paper you want that will help to convict her.”
    Dillon stayed on the chair and said with equal quietness, “I’m not a fool. I love her.”
    “You certainly sound like it. You’d better go.”
    He shook his head. “I can’t go. I’ve got to do somethingand I can’t do it without you. You know I love her and you know she turned me down, and I love her so