Free Another Woman's House by Mignon G. Eberhart Page A

the murder.”
    â€œEvery word of it,” Richard said. “He was coming here to spend his last week-end before he went to England with his unit. He met Webb Manders on the train. He’d been drinking a little with the other kids. Webb offered to drive him here, but he said he’d walk, thinking he’d sober up. So Webb went off presumably to the Manders’ place—and then a short time later came here.”
    The Governor was nodding. “Exactly. Webb’s story was that he got home, Jack wasn’t there, he thought Jack might have come here, and drove back here, passing Tim somewhere along your drive. Tim saw the car; Webb saw Tim in the glow of the car lights but didn’t stop.”
    Myra had read the newspaper accounts over and over; she had never heard the facts told, like that, and suddenly the black and white newspaper print seemed unreal. It was as if she heard, for the first time, the real background for that dark and ugly happening. Perhaps none of it had actually seemed real until now—except Alice and Alice’s house.
    But what had Tim said? What had he done?
    The Governor said, “Then, of course, as Tim was walking along the drive, following Webb’s car, which, however, had disappeared around the curve and gone on rapidly ahead of him, he heard the shots. He ran toward the house, as you know; got over the wall out there and through the shrubbery and got to the terrace door, over there,” said the Governor jerking his head toward the French doors. “And here was Jack Manders on the floor,” unconsciously, it seemed to Myra, he motioned toward the hearth rug, almost at their feet. “Mrs. Thorne had already gone to the hall at Webb’s request to phone for the police. Webb—and this is the crux of the thing—Webb was then bending over Jack. That was the picture according to Tim, then, and Webb agreed in every detail. Room empty except for Webb, bending over his dead brother. Mrs. Thorne in the hall at the telephone. Now then …”
    He paused and drank. The room, the whole house waited, as if it had ears, as if it could hear and waited, listening, to compare the words for which it waited with the truth it knew.
    The Governor said abruptly, frowning, “Yesterday young Lane changed that picture. Well, I’ll show you.” He got up, glanced sharply around the room again as if identifying every detail of its arrangement and furnishings. Then he walked to the other end of the room. There were low bookshelves there with two wide but low windows above them, which were curtained with crimson like the French windows almost directly opposite them. The big man went to the curtains and put his hand on the cord; and looked back at Myra and Richard.
    â€œAt the time of the investigation we went over and over the exact layout of this room. I remembered it perfectly yesterday as soon as Tim Lane started to talk. Built out at the end of the house,” he said, gesturing with the hand that held the glass, “hall door in the middle, low bookshelves and short windows here, bookshelves all along that wall, then the French doors and the fireplace near which Manders fell, exactly there. The big point, of course, was that Manders claimed to have been walking along the driveway in the direction of the front door when he heard the first shot. He says he thought it came from this room. He stood on tiptoes and could see through this window. Thus, he said, he saw Mrs. Thorne with the revolver in her hand—saw, in fact, the murder.” He paused and looked at the window.
    Richard said in a strained, tight voice, “And he lied?”
    â€œWait,” said the Governor. “Hear me out. He said it was quicker to run around the end of the house than to go along to the front door and back the length of the hall to the library. At least that’s what he did. He climbed over that low wall out there, got through the shrubbery and ran up