Rex Stout by The Hand in the Glove

occupied. On the far side sat Len Chisholm, frowning as he dipped meat sauce over a potato, and across from him was Steve Zimmerman, his mouth full, hastily chewing.
    Belden advanced, bowing, and the two men stood up. Dol’s stomach began to feel queer again. She asked, “Where’s Mrs. Storrs?”
    “I don’t know.” Len sounded savage. “I guess upstairs. Come and eat something.”
    “I don’t think … not now. Where’s Sylvia?”
    “I don’t know that either.”
    Zimmerman spoke: “She’s up front with Martin. That room with the plants in it.”
    Len said, “Come and eat while it’s hot. Get some nourishment.”
    Dol shook her head and turned and left them. At the foot of the wide stairs in the hall she stood a moment but could hear no sound from above, then went on through anotherroom to get to the front of the house. In the sun room, on a couch in a recess with palms, sat Sylvia and Martin Foltz.
    Sylvia jumped up and ran to her. “Doll Dol, what is this? Where have you been? Dol, what
is
it?” She seized Dol’s arms.
    Martin was there. He looked worn out and helpless, and he appealed to Dol: “For God’s sake, why didn’t you come to her? Why didn’t you tell her yourself? She wanted to go down there. I couldn’t let her do that, could I? For God’s sake, Dol, what’s happened?”
    Dol drew Sylvia back toward the couch; there was a seat at last. Her voice, never harsh, was now: “Sylvia dear. You buck up. You too, Martin. It’s awful and it’s going to be awful. There’s nothing to do but take it.”

5
    Daniel O. Sherwood was a good politician, of the plump and ruddy type. He was a fairly competent prosecuting attorney but was sometimes handicapped, in his efforts to promote justice, by his incurably benevolent attitude toward persons of standing and repute in the community. He was constitutionally disinclined to severity, except in those cases where it was obviously deserved, and prudence and experience had taught him that people who have servants and three automobiles very seldom deserve it. He was under forty and thought he might be governor some day.
    At nine o’clock Sunday morning he sat in the card room of the house at Birchhaven. It was a large room with a piano in one corner and many shelves filled with books, but was called the card room instead of music room or library because, while the piano was never played and the books not often read, it saw a good deal of bridge. Sherwood was on a straight-backed chair at a table; beside him sat amiddle-aged man with spectacles and big ears, possibly a good lawyer but not the type that might be governor some day; and across from him was Colonel Brissenden of the state police, tanned and tough-looking but not without military elegance. A trooper was in an easy chair over by the door.
    Sherwood was saying, “I understand that, Miss Bonner. I grant that. I believe you and I think Ranth is lying when he says he picked nothing up. As you say, how could you possibly have known there was a paper in his righthand coat pocket unless you had seen him put it there? But you must remember that when we’re investigating a crime and we uncover a fact, we must not only uncover it, we must be prepared to prove it. A jury might believe you against Ranth, that you saw him pick something up, but a lawyer would demonstrate our inability to prove that what he picked up was what was later taken from his pocket. There’s a connection, of course, but there is also a doubt.”
    Dol did not look fresh. The whites of her caramel-colored eyes were not too clear, and there was no glow to her. She sat at the end of the table facing the three men, and seemed now to be considering what Sherwood had said. Finally she told him, with no animation:
    “Very well. I had not realized that that could be a point. I mean that the paper taken from his pocket was the one he had picked up. I know it was because I had looked at it. I had picked it up and straightened it out and