He was a good tenant, paid his rent on time, no beefs.”

“You usually use number 4 shot for ducks, don’t you?” Mulholland asked.

“That’s right,” I said. “I always do. And I was shooting 4’s today. Why?”

He gave me a cold smile. “I just wanted to be sure.”

“Good. Then your mind’s at rest. Go put some more hair tonic on it.”

Scanlon cursed us, and broke it up. We were an intelligent pair, I thought sourly, grown men acting like children. It was a legitimate question, under the circumstances, but I didn’t like the dirty way he put it. He always rubbed me the wrong way.

“Weren’t there any fingerprints on the gun?” I asked.

“No,” Scanlon said. “Not even Roberts’.”

“Somebody wiped ’em off,” Mulholland said. “Clever, huh?”

I ignored him this time, and spoke to Scanlon. “Is that all?”

He was staring moodily at the shotgun. “Oh? Yeah, that’s all. Thanks for coming down.”

I went back to the car. It was too early for dinner and I couldn’t face the thought of a whole evening in that empty house, so I went back to the office and worked on a rough draft of my income tax until after eight before going into Fuller’s. Everybody was talking about Roberts, and I had to repeat what I knew about it a half-dozen times. It was around ten when I drove home. The house is only six blocks from downtown, a rambling cream-colored brick I’d built when Frances and I were married, replacing the old Warren house which had burned down in 1955. An extension of the circular drive goes back along the side of it to the two-car garage, which adjoins the kitchen. The house is roughly U-shaped, with the kitchen and dining room in the short wing, the long 35-foot living room and my den across the front with the entrance hall between them, while, a continuation of the hall runs back through the other wing past the guest rooms to the master bedroom with its fireplace, dressing room, and bath taking up the far end.

Rain, wind-driven, beat against the house. I mixed a drink and tried to settle down in the living room with a book, but it was no good. I kept thinking of Roberts. It was fantastic. Why would somebody have wanted to kill him? And why out there—aside from the futile attempt to make it appear an accident? Only eight of us had keys to that gate. Besides Roberts and myself, there were Dr. Martin; Jim MacBride, the Ford dealer; George Clement, the town’s leading attorney; Clint Henry, cashier of the Citizens National Bank; and Bill Sorensen and Wally Albers, who were away at the moment, on a cruise to Jamaica with their wives. They were all good friends of mine. Of course, as Scanlon said, Roberts might have left the gate open when he came in, or the man could have walked in, but even so he’d have to be familiar with the terrain and the location of the blinds to get there, three miles from the highway, in the dark. The turnoff was fifteen miles east of town.

I went out and mixed another drink.