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

the steps onto the terrace and reached the French doors—there.” Again he moved his hand, gesturing toward the terrace doors. “He said that by that time the shots had stopped; they were in very quick succession naturally; he said that when he entered the room Mrs. Thorne was kneeling beside Jack Manders.”
    Another person was suddenly in the room—two other people. Alice, in a thin white dress leaning over a huddled figure of a man on the hearth rug. A thin white dress, Richard had said, with blood on the front of it.
    Richard, of course, remembered every small detail. To Myra it had a new and poignant clarity. Jack Manders was a man, not merely a name in black and white. Yet she had known him slightly; she could remember even now his florid, rather heavily handsome face, his curly black hair, barely touched with gray, his easy smile. He’d been a tall man, heavy, good-natured, popular with men. Apparently he’d had no enemies. Why should anybody shoot him? The only conceivable motive was the one they had attributed to Alice.
    Richard moved, reached for a cigarette, held it in his hand and forgot to light it. The Governor went on, very precisely, “Webb’s story was that he thought first of a doctor; he hoped Jack was not dead. He told Mrs. Thorne to go and phone for the doctor and she got up and went into the hall to do so. And then he knelt down beside his brother and was trying to find a pulse when he realized that Tim had come to the French doors too, and was standing there staring at the scene. You remember all this, Thorne. But I have to recapitulate in order to explain to you …”
    â€œGo on,” said Richard.
    â€œWell, then. According to Tim’s (and Webb’s) original testimony Tim said, ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ or words to that effect; Webb replied that Jack was killed. He then told Tim they must get a doctor and the police. He did not then accuse Mrs. Thorne—which now is very important. He did not, in fact, accuse her until after Tim and Mrs. Thorne had both been questioned and both were on record with their first, and, as a matter of fact, in both cases, fixed testimonies. Neither Tim nor Mrs. Thorne changed a word that was important after that first inquiry—until yesterday.”
    He paused for an instant again. Strangely, in that instant, the blue paneled walls, the yellow daffodils, the red curtains, seemed clearer and sharper. Every detail of the room seemed to pick itself out with a clarity and poignancy that were almost painful. Richard’s hands were rolling the little white cigarette, twisting it; bits of tobacco fell to the hearth rug.
    The Governor said, “Obviously Tim did not realize when he first put himself on record that there was any question of Mrs. Thorne’s being accused of the murder. He ran into the hall, found her collapsed at the telephone, took her into the dining room to get her out of the way. It was the nearest room. The police came; they got his statement. Well, the point is, as I told you, the original first picture is changed in an important factor. Some of it remains the same. Mrs. Thorne was at the phone, Jack was dead, there before the fireplace. Webb was in the room. But Tim now says that when he reached the terrace door—wait, I’ll show you.”
    Barton had pulled the curtains together. Now, with a sweep, the Governor opened the heavy crimson curtain. “Webb was not bending over Jack. He was instead in the very act of opening this curtain.”
    Richard said nothing. The Governor turned and the two men looked at each other across the room, for a long moment. Then the Governor said, “You see what this means.”
    â€œYes,” said Richard. His voice was strange, flat and harsh; not like Richard. “Yes.”
    â€œIt means,” said the Governor, “that Webb Manders on the driveway outside these windows could not have seen what he claimed later