"Nobody in town that knowed what to do about it; so the coroner took a-holt, I guess, and kinda fixed it to suit hisself. Did you phone ahead to see how things was out to the house?" "Tried to," Worth said. "The operator couldn't raise it." "Course not." Capehart was coupling on the air. "Your chink's off every Sunday--has the whole day--and the Devil only could guess where a Chinaman'd go when he ain't working. Eddie Hughes ought to be on the job out there--but would he?" "Father still kept Eddie?" "Yeh." The click of the jack and the car was lowering. "Eddie's lasted longer than I looked to see him. Due to be fired any time this past year. Been chasing over 'crost the tracks. Got him a girl there, one of these cannery girls. Well, she's sort of married, I guess, but that don't stop Eddie. 'F I see him, I'll tell him you want him." They came to the front of the machine; Worth thrust his hand in his pocket. Capehart checked him with, "Let it go on the bill." Then, as Worth swung into his seat, Barbara bent forward from behind my shoulder, the careless yellowish eyes that saw everything got a fair view of her, and with a sort of subdued crow, "Look who's here!" Capehart took hold of the upright to lean his square form in and say earnestly, "While you're in Santa Ysobel, don't forget that we got a spare room at our house." "Next time," Barbara raised her voice to top the hum of the engine. "I'm only here for over night, now, and I'm going down to Mrs. Thornhill's." We were out in the street once more, leaving the cannery district on our right, tucked away to itself across the railroad tracks, running on Main Street to City Hall Square, where we struck into Broad, followed it out past the churches and to that length of it that held the fine homes in their beautiful grounds, getting close at last to where town melts again into orchards. The road between its rows of fernlike pepper trees was a wet gleam before us, all black and silver; the arc lights made big misty blurs without much illumination as we came to the Thornhill place. Worth got down and, though she told him he needn't bother, took her in to the gate. For a minute I waited, getting the bulk of the big frame house back among the trees, with a single light twinkling from an upper story window; then Worth flung into the car and we speeded on, skirting a long frontage of lawns, beautifully kept, pearly with the fog, set off with artfully grouped shrubbery and winding walks. There was no barrier but a low stone coping; the drive to the Gilbert place went in on the side farthest from the Thornhill's. We ran in under a carriage porch. The house was black. "See if I can raise anybody," said Worth as he jumped to the ground. "Let you in, and then I'll run the roadster around to the garage."