don't hit it off with Mrs. Grunch; I always
thought you were such a happy couple." His wife's family said, "Poor
Gladys! what a life she must have had!" His own family said, "Poor John!
what a life she must have led him to make him go off with that
adventuress!" Several people identified the adventuress as Miss Crook,
the Secretary of the local Mothers' Welfare League, of which John was a
vice-president.

The fog of suspicion swelled and spread and penetrated into every cranny
and level of society. No servants would come near the house, or if they
did they soon stumbled on a copy of the shocker while doing the
drawing-room, read it voraciously and rushed screaming out of the
front-door. When he took a parcel of washing to the post-office the
officials refused to accept it until he had opened it and shown that
there were no bodies in it.

The animal kingdom is very sensitive to the suspicion of guilt. John
noticed that dogs avoided him, horses neighed at him, earwigs fled from
him in horror, caterpillars madly spun themselves into cocoons as he
approached, owls hooted, snakes hissed. Only Mrs. Grunch remained
faithful.

But one morning at breakfast Mrs. Grunch said, "Pass the salt, please,
John." John didn't hear. He was reading a letter. Mrs. Grunch said
again, "Pass the salt, please, John." John was still engrossed. Mrs.
Grunch wanted the salt pretty badly, so she got up and fetched it. As
she did so she noticed that the handwriting of the letter was the
handwriting of A Woman. Worse, it was written on the embossed paper of
the Mothers' Welfare League. It must be from Miss Crook. _And it was._
It was about the annual outing. "Ah, ha!" said Mrs. Grunch. (I am afraid
that "Ah, ha!" doesn't really convey to you the sort of sound she made,
but you must just imagine.) "Ah, ha! So _that_'s why you couldn't pass
the salt!"

Mad with rage, hatred, fear, chagrin, pique, jealousy and indigestion,
John rushed out of the house and went to the office. At the door of the
office he met one of the typists. He held the door open for her. She
simpered and refused to go in front of him. Being still mad with rage,
hatred, chagrin and all those other things, John made a cross gesture
with his umbrella. With a shrill, shuddering shriek of "Murder!" the
girl cantered violently down Ludgate Hill and was never seen again.
Entering the office, John found two detectives waiting to ask him a few
questions in connection with the Newcastle Pi