Green Ace Read Free

from Midland Beach, you know. If he hadn’t passed that stop sign he’d probably have dug a nice grave for Midge in the sand somewhere, and maybe we wouldn’t have found her yet.”
    “It all sounds very damning, almost too damning.” The schoolteacher stood up and crossed the room to stare intently at the view from the window, which gave onto a brick wall a dozen feet away. She said, “All the same, I’d like a talk with Rowan.”
    “A talk in the death-house?” Piper thought that was funny. “Nobody but his wife or his lawyers could get in there, and they’ve all long since washed their hands of him. He’s as good as dead already, now that the appeal has failed. The Governor has intimated that he isn’t going to take any action, not with the public up in arms about the nationwide wave of crimes against women and children. Besides, suppose you did get to Rowan? What do you think an amateur snoop could worm out of him at this late date that trained detectives missed?”
    “There’s such a thing as being overtrained! I confess now that I’ve always had certain doubts about the Harrington case just from what I’ve read about it. Suppose Rowan is innocent, as his writing that kind of will clearly indicates? Justice is justice, and on top of that I hate to see your hide nailed to the barn door by the yellow press. Perhaps Mrs. Rowan can be induced to help. What’s her address, Oscar?”
    “Still 144 Prospect Way, as far as I know. But Hildegarde—”
    “I know. I promised not to meddle any more, but this is a serious situation. I simply must take steps to save you in spite of yourself from an awful mistake!”
    “Oh, no !” cried the Inspector, feeling that the cure would be worse than the disease. So many of Miss Withers’ well-meant attempts at assisting him in the past had backfired that he hastily leaped to his feet, saying, “Hildegarde, wait a minute!”
    “Like time and tide, I wait for no man,” she called over her shoulder. She was gone, leaving behind only a faint odor of soap, violet sec, and chalk dust.
    Letting as usual no grass whatever grow under her stoutly clad feet, Miss Withers was soon hammering on the door of a big solid red-brick house overlooking Riverside Drive and the looming geometry of the George Washington Bridge. At first glance there was nothing here, even to her active imagination, to suggest that the place had ever been associated with murder and sudden death. The lawn was well kept, the shrubbery trimmed. But the windows were streaked and dusty, with drawn blinds, and no one answered her knock. Finally she started resolutely around to the rear, and almost stumbled over a fading sign stuck in the side lawn: “ FOR IMMEDIATE SALE OR TRADE , Digby and Sons” …
    She rounded the corner of the house, almost plunging into the brown and brittle tangle that had been a rose garden, and stopped short. A young man in a leather jacket was just letting himself out of the kitchen door—a tallish, weedy young man who started visibly when he saw her approach.
    “One moment!” cried Miss Withers. “Young man, if you’re from the real estate brokers I’d like a chance to view the house.”
    “Real estate?” he said blankly, in a cultured voice that was a cut or two above his extremely casual clothes. “I don’t understand.”
    “The house is for sale, isn’t it? I’d like to look at it, and I want to get in touch with the owner.”
    “I’m afraid I can’t help you,” he said. “Sorry.” And he started off.
    “But if you’re not from the realtor’s, then who are you?”
    “Gas man,” he told her. “Just reading the meter.” And he was gone.
    Miss Withers hammered on the back door, without much hope. She even tried the knob, but it was locked. There were French doors opening out onto a sort of raised sun porch, but every blind was drawn. Finally she gave it up and went away.
    A telephone call to the real estate office produced only the information that they did