draw up for her the
necessary papers for suing Withers for a divorce. In these documents she
set forth in so many words that her husband had treated her with the
utmost brutality, so much so that she lived daily in danger of death
while under his roof.

"She regarded him, she swore, as capable of murdering her at any time.
Now, do you see? If that had gotten into the newspapers, if Morley had
known of it through Maria Fulton and had blurted it out, no power on
earth could have kept down the very reasonable assumption that Withers
had had a hand in his wife's death--or, at least, had regarded it with
complaisance.

"No wonder I laughed, was it? But I said nothing about it to Braceway. I
couldn't have explained to him how I knew it, although the tip came to me
straight enough. And, as there's no earthly chance of Withers having been
implicated in the crime, why worry about it?

"I merely laughed and--kept quiet."

Greenleaf had listened in great solemnity to this amusing recital.

"Maybe you're right," he said. "But Withers has done some funny things."

"What things?"

"His wife was buried in Atlanta Thursday morning. He immediately left
Atlanta, and hasn't been seen or heard of since--a sharp contrast to old
Fulton. He got back here early Friday morning and came up to Number Five.
They're going to keep that bungalow."

"When did Withers leave Atlanta?"

"Thursday morning, right after the funeral. Another thing: he's heels
over head in debt."

"Well, what about it? What are you driving at?" Bristow asked,
perceptibly irritable.

"I'm not driving at anything. What's it to us anyway? It stimulates this
ugly talk. That's all."

Bristow was doing some quick thinking. If Withers had left Atlanta
early Thursday morning, he might have reached Washington by Friday
afternoon--and gone to Baltimore! But did he? And did Braceway know of it
and keep it to himself?

He recalled that Braceway, during their breakfast together in Washington,
had said:

"Get one thing straight in your mind, Bristow. Any man I find mixed up in
this murder I'm going to turn over to the police. If I thought George
Withers had killed his wife, I'd hand him over so fast it would make your
head swim. You may not believe that, but I would--in a second!"

Had that been a prophecy? Was Withers in Baltimore at two-thirty Friday
afternoon? Could he have been fool enough to pawn anything? Or did he go
there in the hope of incriminating Morley fur