They were near the end of the meal when Mrs. Boynton, who was facing the open door, motioned through it.

'Look, Edward! It's both of them.' Outside, the two Parkers, the official derelicts of West Brookins, were coming waveringly along the pavement, arm in arm. Three or four small boys derided safely from a distance.

It was the boys Boynton saw first. He got up instantly.

'Oh, come, we can't have that! Why, he's a man as old as I am! She's going round to the back, Cara. You head her off and I'll go down and speak to him.'

Parker had turned in behind the hedge with which the Boyntons were replacing a partly torn down brick wall. Behind it, he was out of sight from the house, and remembering the three girls at the table, Boynton hurried, with the charitable purpose of saving him the embarrassment of an audience.

'I don't know about no coat, Mr. Boynton. I don't know what you're talking about. Mr. Thornley, he come out an' said somethin', but I did n't know

The sentence went unfinished. Boynton, facing the speaker from the other side of the pile of bricks, had turned his eyes away in a sort of vicarious shame at his protestations. As the words broke off, he was conscious of something, he hardly knew what a kind of concussion, a sense of violent disturbance to which there was yet attached no movement. The man in front of him flung up his hands with a choking grunt and crumpled forward. Instinctively, Boynton caught at him as he fell, but he broke through his hold, a dead weight, and dropped across the bricks. On Boynton's hands and his cuffs, blood had flicked itself in sickening red blots. The still sunny lane, with its signs of peaceable labor, was suddenly a place of horror.

And then at once the stillness was broken. Mrs. Parker rushed round the end of the hedge. She threw herself on the thing on the ground, howling and wailing, pulling at it, grotesque, unhuman. Mrs. Boynton had run out too, and Helen and her friends, and two men from the street, and Boynton knew that he must have cried out, though he had not meant to do so.

The two men dragged Mrs. Parker up and bent over the body. They babbled together of a doctor, though all of them knew in advance that the

'Now look here,' Boynton ordered with exasperation, 'you know what coat as well as I do. Have n't you just come from Thornley's? Did n't he tell you I said I'd finish you if you came near this place again without bringing it back? If you have n't it'

living could have had that look. In the press and sudden confusion Mrs. Boynton was the only one who had a definite intention. She caught hold of Boynton's sleeve.

'Come into the house. They'll look out for things. You have to get to get this off you.'

She would have accompanied him

into the bathroom, but he stopped her at the door. 'I have to have a minute to pull myself together. I'll be down directly. What on earth was it that happened to him!'

Inside, he turned on all the taps. It seemed to him he could never get water enough on his hands. When his hands were clean he pulled off his cuffs and let them drop on the floor, and scrubbed his fingers again after touching them. He could not bear to put the befouled things into the laundry hamper, but with his foot he pushed them out of sight behind the tub.

By the time he came downstairs, the knot of people in the lane had disappeared. Mrs. Boynton was sitting on the porch, and Helen, with scared, reddened eyes, was leaning against her knees. Boynton had recovered enough to be paternal and soothing. He sat on the steps for a few minutes, talking over the grotesque tragedy.

'Poor old soul, I wish I had n't harried him about that coat. He was always honest enough when he was sober. They've taken him to the morgue, I suppose? Well, we'd better get back to work, had n't we, little daughter? There 's no advantage to him in our spoiling an afternoon.'

III

Inside his study his mind refused to apply itself to work. In spite of him, it flashed back again and again to that minute in the lane. He got up and walked up and down the room, puzzling. 'What happened to him? What on earth happened to him?' Toward the middle of the afternoon, when he heard a masculine voice answering Mrs. Boynton's, he took advantage of hearing to stroll out from his seclusion. Their next door neighbor, Judge Boll

inga judge long since retired was filling one of the porch chairs. Boynton greeted him briefly.

'Oh yes, I'm working, but I heard you out here, and I was wondering — Cara, I suppose somebody's looking out for Mrs. Parker? She would n't have many friends to fall back on.'

"They took her to the hospital.' "That 's good. If you think one of us ought to go over -'

'I don't.' Mrs. Boynton flushed crimson as she spoke. 'I've heard from her. Edward, she she 's-'

'Might as well say it, Cara,' the judge advised. He turned round, laughing.

'You ought to know, Boynton, you 're hovering on the edge of the gallows. I was telling Cara just before you came out. Mrs. Parker —'

Mrs. Boynton cut in on the sentence. 'She says she heard you say, "I told you I'd finish you if you came on my place," and then —'

'Why yes. Yes, that 's what I did say,' Boynton corroborated. He grasped the other part of the idea slowly. 'Do you mean she has the effrontery the the assurance —'

Their guest laughed again, more reassuringly than before. 'She's still two thirds over. Wait till we see what she says when she's sober. - Funny thing is, what was the matter with him? Do you suppose one of those boys who were following

'I have n't the smallest idea. I'd think he had a fit and struck his head when he fell, only I saw the blood before that. I tried to catch him, and it was all over me.'

'If I were you, I'd forget about seeing it beforehand,' the ex-judge suggested casually.

He had been gone an hour or two and it was nearly dinner time before the force of his suggestion struck home to Boynton's mind. He commented on

it indignantly to his wife and daughter while they ate.

'A man like Bolling, too! That's the worst of having anything to do with the courts, even as far up as he was. I've never had to testify at an inquest, and naturally I've always kept clear of getting on juries or anything of that kind; but as to using any subterfuge to get out of testifying —'

By the next morning, though, his attention had been diverted to newer reasons for indignation. Mrs. Parker was still too ill to leave her bed, and the inquest was being postponed for her, but her pre-inquest statements, as they seeped out by way of hospital attendants and doctors, were voluminous. She had heard the damning words, she had seen the brick picked up, the blow struck. She breathed out fire and threatenings, between relapses into post-alcoholic grief. The news of her accusations was all over West Brookins. From early breakfasttime the Boynton telephone rang continually as prelude to messages satirical or humorous. Even families in Brookins, the town to which West Brookins was a remote and superior suburb, had heard and added their messages to the nearer ones. Boynton, going out to the box to mail a letter in the middle of the morning, found Mrs. Boynton waiting in the study for him when he came back.

'I don't know whether you'll like it, Edward; I've just had a 'phone from Charlie.'

'If I don't like it, I suppose you won't have had it. What does Charlie have to say? Offer to defend me?'

'Something like that. He said he was coming down as soon as he could get out of court, and—and to keep you from talking.'

"To keep me from it?'

"That's what it sounded like. The 'phone was n't working very well.'

"That's probably what it was,' Boynton agreed. 'It has the ring of Charlie's advice. Well, run along, dear, and I'll get back to writing. Let me know if he favors us with any more suggestions.'

Inwardly, though, he was pleased. Charlie was his younger brother and in a mild way the black sheep of the family. That is, he had given up an irreproachable law practice in Los Angeles for the sake of criminal practice in San Francisco, and had added to that the extra offense of taking a somewhat holier-than-thou attitude over the change.

'It'll be good for him,' Boynton mused, while he glanced over the notes on his desk. "To come racing down and find us all going about our business It's what I've tried to tell him about those clients of his he gets so excited over. If a man lives in a decent place and leads a decent life, he's out of reach of accidents. Now with me

He let his mind go, house by house, down the street. There were people he disliked in some of the houses, people no doubt who disliked him; but there was not one house of them all he knew it perfectly in which the ravings of Mrs. Parker could meet with any reception except indignant incredulity.

It was pleasant, though, all the same, that the telephone kept up its friendly clamor, that Mrs. Boynton on the porch was holding what amounted to an impromptu reception. Two or three times Boynton strolled out to add his greetings to his wife's.

"To let you see the villain of the piece,' he explained his coming. He was good-humoredly qualified in his comments on Mrs. Parker. 'Poor old wreck! In her condition no telling what she would see! No, I don't

blame her; the people I do blame are the town authorities. A little more sense of responsibility on their part-'

IV

Charlie arrived just before dinner, a smaller man than his brother hawknosed, black-haired. Through the meal they kept chiefly to family topics. Even in the study afterward the newcomer fended off discussion until Mrs. Boynton, leaning forward in her chair, taxed him directly:

'Is it Helen and I that are the difficulty, Charlie? Would you rather talk to Edward by himself?'

He gave her his first unqualified smile. 'Could I? It's a sort of a professional prejudice of mine. You don't mind?'

He got up to open the door for her and came back from it to the fireplace, where he stood staring down at the logs.

'Well, what do you think, Sherlock?' Boynton challenged him.

'I think you 're in a hole.' 'Did you actually take it seriously enough to come down from San Francisco on account of this?'

younger brother agreed resignedly, and Boynton ran rapidly through the narrative of Parker's death. When he had finished, Charlie came back to his chair and sat down in the circle of light from the lamp, leaning his arms on the table.

'And you still don't think you're in a hole - after telling me all that?' 'I know I'm not.'

'You said you'd kill him and said it in the presence of witnesses and repeated it over the telephone. Then you were alone with him when he dropped dead; his blood was all over you, and the widow-’

'Well, do you believe I did it?'
"That's not the question.'

'It's exactly the question. I tell you, Charlie, you could n't get any intelligent man in West Brookins no, nor in Brookins either, though it's not a place I'm fond of — to believe a thing like that. Not any more than you'd believe it yourself. The evidence would n't matter; they'd know it was n't true.'

'You could n't get a change of venue?'

"There is n't any question of "venue." You talk as though I'd been held

His audience seemed not to hear. 'I never lived in this particular town, of course, but most of them How big a place is it?'

"Three thousand, I believe - West Brookins, that is. Brookins is larger.' "That's about what I thought. See here; I knew exactly how you'd treat the thing the thing that's why I came down; but we've got to take it seriously. It is serious! Any lawyer 'd tell you so. This business of being a valued old resident that you seem to be depending on to keep you out of trouble 'And that will!' 'Sure of it?'

'Of course I'm sure of it.'

The questioner drew in a deep breath. 'Well maybe! But where do you get it, Ed?'

'I don't know what you mean.' "That "first-citizen" stuff? Oh, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. I'm trying to find out. What do you do in Brookins

I don't mean the United States; I mean right here in West Brookins to keep them all so certain about you? Vote once in a while?'

'I always vote.'

'I know you do for President. Vote in the last town election?'

'I don't remember —' 'I remember all right even if I was n't here. You meant to and you thought you would and you did n't know anything about either of the candidates, and it looked like rain, and you sat right here and let 'em elect anybody they good and pleased; and now you'll get tried for murder by those same good and pleased parties.'

Boynton laughed. It was an effort to do it, for he was angry, but he made the effort.

'It's a beautiful peroration, Charlie. It's a pity it's wasted. Even an exprofessor knows that town officials don't try for murder.'

'Any idea who binds you over to the superior court? Oh, I don't say a police judge could help it on the evidence, but I do say he won't break his heart over it not with one of the little highand-mighties from West Brookins. If you think the cheapest skate there is likes being elected and run by the scum of a town Know any of the police judges?'

'I've never had occasion to.'

'Or the town marshal? Or the coroner for that matter? Then you don't know the kind of men you're up against. If you want my advice —'

'I seem to be getting it.'

'You're going to get it. You won't take it, but you're going to get it, all

right. If I were where you are, I'd do one of two things: either I'd get a theory about that killing and I'd work it for all it was worth, or else I'd get out. Nobody'd look very far for you.' 'You mean - go into hiding?'

'It don't matter what you call it. Go on a visit if you want to. Just get out of the way for a while till there's time to look around. And do it now while you've the chance to do it.' 'If your other clients

'I'm not helping you as a client; I'm helping you as a brother. I'm scared, Ed. That's the truth. If anything I can say can get you away

'It can't.'

'I knew it,' Charlie acknowledged regretfully. 'I hand it to you as far as that goes. That French-RevolutionCharles-the-First stunt is the one you first citizens always pull when you get into trouble. All right, that's ended though I still hope you change your mind before morning. What about the widow? Young? Pretty? Well, I don't know which is worse - that, or old and feeble, prop of her declining years removed. You need n't laugh. If you'd had as much experience as I have

'You've had entirely too much, Charlie,' Boynton agreed. This time his laughter was sincere. 'You're trying the case down on Kearney Street. What you overlook is that, even if there should be some preliminary unpleasantness - I don't believe there will be still, I have a safe resort. Nothing can go very far without being passed on by a jury. I know enough law for that.'

'It's the jury you're depending on?' 'It's precisely that.'

"You think if the widow took the stand and swore to what she'd heard you say, and cried and had hysterics—'

'I think it would n't make the slightest difference. I've lived here twelve