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the jar out of her hand and stared into its murky depths. At last he shook his head. “I dunno, Janet. Sounds crazy to me.”
    “Of course it’s crazy, Fred. Whoever claimed murder was sane? All the same it was murder, just as if somebody’d held a loaded gun to her head and pulled the trigger. And furthermore, you’ve got another one on your hands right in that office, and you know it as well as I do. And I’m very much afraid it’s because of me and this jar that Dr. Druffitt was killed.”
    “How do you figure that?”
    “Because Dot Fewter was with me when I found the jar and fool-like, I showed it to her instead of keeping my mouth shut. Then I called up Mrs. Druffitt to see if the doctor was going to be in, and she asked me point-blank if I was in pain because of course she knew I’d had that operation for my appendix down in Saint John, so I had to say no, I was all right but I wanted to ask the doctor about something I’d found in the cellar. Lord knows how many people were on the party line, and you can be darn sure Dot Fewter was burning up the wires to her mother the minute my back was turned. You know what that pair are like. Annabelle calls them the Maritime Network.”
    “Well Janet—”
    “And you can’t deny it’s a bit too much of a coincidence, his turning up dead when I walk in here with this jar in my hand. You know as well as I do that he couldn’t possibly have got that sort of injury by hitting the desk. It’s my guess that somebody came at him from behind with something round and heavy, like the handle of that big brass poker right over there by the fireplace. They knocked him down, then dragged the body over by the desk and rumpled the rug under his feet to make it look as if he’d slipped.”
    “Aw Janet,” an uneasy grin crept over Olson’s face. “You been travelin’ with the wrong kind o’ crowd down there in Saint John, eh?”
    If he’d wanted to get under her skin, he couldn’t have picked a more successful way. Janet slammed the jar back into the bag and marched for the door. “Have it your own way, Fred. I’ve said my piece.”
    “Now, wait a minute. Don’t go flyin’ off the handle. Gimme time to think, can’t you? S’posin’ I did pick up that there telephone right this minute an’ call the Mounties. What am I s’posed to tell ’em? At least we might as well wait an’ hear what the doctor has to say.”
    Janet sniffed. “That old dodo? If he’s still able to talk, he’ll tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear. The only thing he ever knew how to treat was hypochondria. Couldn’t you find a doctor who’s halfway competent? Isn’t there a provincial coroner or somebody?”
    “Janet, how about if you simmer down an’ use your head for somethin’ besides a hat rack? You know damn well what’s goin’ to happen if I go stirrin’ up a stink an’ it turns out to be nothin’ but your imagination. Maybe you don’t give a hoot because you got a job back in Saint John, but what about me an’ Bert?”
    “Oh Fred, I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Living away from a small town, she’d forgotten what a deadly weapon gossip could be.
    “Well, you better think of it,” said the marshal. “Don’t think I’m backin’ down on this thing because I’m not. That jar of beans is evidence. That dent in Hank’s skull is evidence. But they don’t add up to a tinker’s damn till we get a little more to go on. Look, Janet, me an’ Hank Druffitt was babies together. If somebody killed him like you said, I want the bugger caught a damn sight worse than you do. But I can’t go ahead an’ start draggin’ in outsiders till I’m pretty damn sure I got a reason to. I got a wife an’ kids to think of, an’ so does your brother.”
    Fred was talking sense, she had to admit. If he were to get the Mounties up here on Janet Wadman’s say-so, all Pitcherville would be in an uproar. If they found nothing, Elizabeth Druffitt would work up her pals at