Got the eleven-o’clock train.”

“Eleven o’clock?” said Buck. “For Albany?”

“Did I say Albany?” said the Doctor. “Watertown, I meant.”

“Friends in Watertown?” Buck asked.

“Mrs. Slater,” said the Doctor. “Mr. and Mrs. Slater. Lived next door to ‘em when she was a kid, Irene said, over on Sycamore Street.”

“Slater?” said Bud. “Next door to Irene. Not in this town.”

“Oh, yes,” said the Doctor. “She was telling me all about them last night. She got a letter. Seems this Mrs. Slater looked after her when her mother was in the hospital one time.”

“No,” said Bud.

“That’s what she told me,” said the Doctor. “Of course, it was a good many years ago.”

“Look, Doc,” said Buck. “Bud and I were raised in this town. We’ve known Irene’s folks all our lives. We were in and out of their house all the time. There was never anybody next door called Slater.”

“Perhaps,” said the Doctor, “she married again, this woman. Perhaps it was a different name.”

Bud shook his head.

“What time did Irene go to the station?” Buck asked.

“Oh, about a quarter of an hour ago,” said the Doctor.

“You didn’t drive her?” said Buck.

“She walked,” said the Doctor.

“We came down Main Street,” Buck said. “We didn’t meet her.”

“Maybe she walked across the pasture,” said the Doctor.

“That’s a tough walk with a suitcase,” said Buck.

“She just had a couple of things in a little bag,” said the Doctor.

Bud was still shaking his head.

Buck looked at Bud and then at the pick, at the new, damp cement on the floor. “Jesus Christ!” he said.

“Oh, God, Doc!” Bud said. “A guy like you!”

“What in the name of heaven are you two bloody fools thinking?” asked the Doctor. “What are you trying to say?”

“A spring!” said Bud. “I ought to have known right away it wasn’t any spring.”

The Doctor looked at his cement-work, at the pick, at the large worried faces of his two friends. His own face turned livid. “Am I crazy?” he said. “Or are you? You suggest that I’ve — that Irene — my wife — oh, go on! Get out! Yes, go and get the sheriff. Tell him to come here and start digging. You — get out!”

Bud and Buck looked at each other, shifted their feet, and stood still again.

“Go on,” said the Doctor.

“I don’t know,” said Bud.

“It’s not as if he didn’t have the provocation,” Buck said.

“God knows,” Bud said.

“God knows,” Buck said.