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touched my hand. “—if this is a true thing now between us, Hugh, and you help me, it will be helping us.”
    “You’ve lost me.”
    “No matter what I feel or what you feel, I won’t inflict on you the woman I will be after they—do that to him. And I mean that, with all my heart. Nothing can change my mind.”
    And I knew nothing could.
    “So how do I help, Vicky? What do I do?”
    Her thin fingers tightened on my wrist and her eyes were direct and fierce and blue. “He didn’t do it, Hugh. He didn’t do it.”
    “But—”
    “I know. I know the way it all sounds. I know the terrible sound of it. He didn’t do it. And there’s nothing I can do to prove he didn’t. Maybe you can. I don’t know. But you see—It’s our only chance, the only chance we’ll ever have. I won’t go away, Hugh. I’ll stay here, so I can help you. And—we won’t have much time.”
    “How much?”
    She whispered and she looked like a ghost. “Ten days, Hugh. They’ve set the date again. Ten days. They’ll do it on Monday, on the twenty-fourth. In the morning.”
      

Chapter Three
     
    I TOOK A ROOM THAT NIGHT at the MacClelland Inn. The last thing she said to me as I left her was that she felt as though she had begun to live again. No matter how I tried to caution her, she could not stem the rising tide of her own optimism. It was a bigger responsibility than I cared to have. I knew that if I could do nothing, and I expected to be able to do nothing, the blow of his execution would be greater than if I had never come to see her. I could not endorse her faith in his innocence. I knew that whenever such a crime occurs, those close to the criminal find it impossible to believe that such a thing could be done by someone they have known and loved.
    And I knew my own limitations. I was no experienced investigator. I did not know this town well, or these people. And Alister had certainly inspired no trust or affection in me. Also I anticipated that there would be a lot of feeling against anyone who tried to help him. On the other side of the ledger, I had hired and fired and managed a lot of human beings. You learn how to improve your snap judgment. You learn how you have to lean on this one and tease that one. I knew that I wasn’t in any sense what could be called a timid man. And I had some money—at least enough to finance my own investigation.
    I had stayed at the MacClelland Inn before for a day or two while locating a room when I had first come to the Dalton area. It was a big place and it had once been a private home. It was right on the square, a white frame place with good plantings and a comfortable colonial look about it. The furniture in the lounge was authentic antique. The rooms were large, comfortable and furnished in taste. I had eaten there many times, particularly when the brass had been in town. At that time I had gotten friendly with the owner, Charles Staubs, and his wife, Mary. I didn’t know if they would remember me. He was a graduate of a good school of hotel management, a hard-working guy with sense enough to conceal the wry and somewhat cynical side of his nature from the cash customers who wouldn’t appreciate it.
    Mary came out to the small desk in the hallway when I rang the bell on the desk. She was a dark-haired comfortable woman. She had done the decorating, and I had suspected, three years ago, that it was Mary who kept a firm dark eye on the finances.
    She glanced at me curiously. I asked for a room and she said they could give me one. I signed the register card. She looked at it and said, “Of course! How stupid! In this business I’m supposed to remember faces, aren’t I? Are you building us another superhighway, Hugh?”
    “Just passing through.”
    “I hope you’ve eaten. The dining-room just closed ten minutes ago.”
    “I’ve eaten. Charlie around?”
    “He’s in the office making out some kind of a report. State unemployment or something.”
    “If he isn’t too tied up,