It was datelined here in Sanport, June eighth. That was two months ago.

SEARCH WIDENS FOR MISSING BANK OFFICIAL

J. N. Butler, vice-president of the First National Bank of Mount Temple, was the object of a rapidly expanding manhunt today as announcement was made of discovery of a shortage in the bank’s funds estimated at $120,000.

I looked up at her. She smiled. I read on.

Butler, prominent in social and civic activities of the town for over twenty years, has been missing since Saturday, at which time, according to Mrs. Butler, he announced his intention of going to Louisiana for a weekend fishing trip. He did not return Sunday night, as scheduled, but it was not until the bank opened for business this morning that the shortage was discovered.

I read the second one. It was dated three days later, and was a rehash of the previous story, except that the lead paragraph said Butler s car had been found abandoned in Sanport and that police were now looking for him all over the nation.

I handed them back. “That was two months ago,” I said. “What’s the pitch? Have they found him?”

“No,” she said. “And I don’t think they will.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think he ever left his house in Mount Temple. Not alive, anyway.”

I put the drink down very slowly and watched her face. You didn’t have to be a genius to see she knew something about it the police didn’t.

“Why?” I asked.

“Interested?”

“I might be. Enough to listen, anyway.”

“All right,” she said. “It’s like this: I’m a nurse. And for about eight months I was on a job in Mount Temple, taking care of a woman who’d suffered a stroke and was partially paralyzed. Her house was out in the edge of town, across the street from a big place, an enormous old house taking up a whole city block. J. N. Butler’s place.” She stopped.

“All right,” I said. “Keep going.”

“Well, his car, the one they found abandoned here—I saw it leave there that Saturday. Only it wasn’t Saturday afternoon, the way she said; it was Saturday night. And he wasn’t driving it. She was.”

“His wife?”

“His wife.”

“Hold it,” I said. “You say it was night. How do you know who was driving?”

“I was out on the front lawn, smoking a cigarette before going to bed. Just as the Butler car came out of their drive onto the street, another car went by and caught it in the headlights. It was Mrs. Butler, all right.