She was about thirty years of age, a quiet but not unfriendly woman. Shy.
She seldom joined the others in the parlor of the Halkett Street house; in the evenings she took a walk or went to the movies.
She had apparently no family, and received no mail of any importance.
She had been an expert stenographer in the law office of Waite and Henderson, well-known attorneys, and was highly thought of there.
Recently, however, she had shown signs of nervousness, and her work had suffered somewhat.
Her life had been apparently an open book.
In the morning she was called at seven. She dressed slowly, ate her breakfast, and reported at nine at the office.
She had not been interested in men, or they in her; but she had had one caller, a gentleman, about two weeks before.
His identity was unknown, but he seemed to have been a well-dressed man, not young.
He had arrived, according to the colored woman servant, about eight o’clock and stayed until nine-thirty.
She had had only a glimpse of him and could not describe him.
On the day of her death, which was Sunday, she had spent the morning doing some small washing and mending.
In the afternoon, however, she had put on the blue coat and started out.
She was back in less than an hour, and had seemed low-spirited.
No one had seen her leave the house that night.
It was thought that she had left the house about eight, and the police believed that she had been killed at or near that ditch on the Warrenville road where the body was found.
But on Monday afternoon we were to learn where she had been shot.
My property lies at the foot of a longish hill.
As a result of this, and an annoying one it is, a certain number of cars come down in gear but with the switch off, and by and large a very considerable amount of backfiring takes place directly outside of my drive.
The result is that when, quite recently, a bootlegger fired a number of shots at a policeman and finally wounded him in the leg, the poor wretch lay untended for some little time.
All of which bears directly on the killing of Florence Gunther.
Dick had telephoned me during the day, when the identity of Florence Gunther had been given out by the police, and begged me to send Judy away.
“She’s not safe,” he said, worried.
“Until we know what’s behind this nobody’s safe.”
I agreed to do what I could, and when he came in at six o’clock looking rather the worse for wear, he was more cheerful.
I had kept the news of the murder from Judy until then, thinking she might hear it better from him, and she greeted him with a great coolness.
“Don’t come near me,” she said.
“And don’t ask him to dinner, Elizabeth Jane.
He walked out on me last night.”
“Listen to her!
If I don’t work I don’t eat, my child.
These millionaire’s daughters!” he said to me.
“They think honest toil is cutting coupons.
Money’s nothing to them.”
Then he remembered something, and put his hand in his pocket.
“Speaking of money,” he said, “hanged if I didn’t forget I’d had a windfall.
Look what I found!”
He drew out of his pocket a blue beaded bag, and Judy snatched it from him.
“I suppose you’ve advertised it?” she said severely.
“Darling, I am this moment out of my bath.
Of course I shall,” he added virtuously. “‘Found: bag.’
Vague but honest, eh what?
It’s got ten dollars in it!”
“Where did you find it?”
“I just drove out from the Bell estate in my Rolls-Royce, and there it was.”
“On the street?”
“On the street.
Right outside your gates, oh daughter of Eve.
I said to myself:
‘What’s that?’