"You can see just how the murderer worked," he said. "He attacked Miss Hesketh here, burst out of the darkness on her and killed her with one blow—you remember there was no sign either about her or the surroundings of a struggle—and almost immediately heard the Doctor’s auto horn. We can place that by the scream the Bohemian woman heard." "Do you think he was there when the Doctor passed?" I asked. "Of course he was. He hadn’t had time to arrange the body. That was done after the Doctor had gone by—done after the moon came out. Reddy said it was as bright as day when he got there. By that brightness the murderer did the work of concealment." I stepped back into the mud and looked down to where the Firehill Road entered the turnpike a few yards farther on. "He must have heard Mr. Reddy’s horn before the car came in sight. By that time he had probably finished and stolen away." "I don’t think so," said Babbitts. "He couldn’t have done it without some noise and Reddy, who was listening and watching for Sylvia, was positive there wasn’t a sound. That human devil was back among the bushes when Reddy’s car came round the turn. And he must have stayed there—afraid to move—watching Reddy, first as he waited, then as he slowly ran back and forth. God, what a situation—one man looking for the woman he loved, her murderer hidden a few yards from him, and between them both her dead body!" I seemed to see it: the road bathed in moonlight, the murderer huddled down in the black shadow, and Reddy in the car looking now this way and now that, expecting her to come. How terribly still it must have been, not a sound except the rustling of the withered leaves. I could imagine the light from the racer’s lamps, shooting out in two long yellow rays, showing every rut and ridge, so that that grim watching face had to draw down lower still in the darkness of the underbrush. Did he know who Reddy was waiting for? What did he feel when the auto moved and one swerve sideways would have sent those yellow rays over the heap of branches on the grass? As Babbitts said, he must have been afraid to move, must have cowered there and seen the racer glide away and then come back; and still bent behind the network of twigs have watched the man at the wheel, as he looked up and down the road, waited and listened, every now and then sounding the horn, that broke into the silence like a weird, hollow cry. "Oh, come on," I said suddenly, seizing Babbitts’ arm. "Let’s go up to Cresset’s where it’s bright and cheerful." We had a lovely time at Cresset’s. My, but they were a nice family! Farmer Cresset, a big, kind, jolly man and his two sons, splendid, sun-burned chaps, and his little daughter, as fresh as a peach and as shy as a kitten. I loved them all, and Mrs. Cresset best. She made me think of my mother, not that she looked like her, but I guess because she had something about her that’s about all women who’ve had families they loved.