"He could have done that, knowing his house was empty. Hines, you remember, said she wasn't five minutes in the booth. We've only Reddy's word for that message. We don't even know if she got a connection. I telephoned out to the Corona operator Saturday and she answered that there was no record of the message and she herself remembered nothing about it."
"But Sylvia," I said—"she told Hines she was expecting someone to come for her."
"Sylvia was eloping. Mightn't she have told Hines—who was curious and intrusive—what wasn't true?"
A sort of hush fell on us all. Babbitts's face and Jones's, from being just amused, were intent and interested.
"Go ahead, Jasper," said Babbitts, "if this isn't buying the baby a frock it's good yarning."
Jasper went on.
"Her story of the broken automobile she believed to be true. But she didn't want Hines to know who she was or what she was up to, so she invented the person coming to take her home. Why she sat so long there talking is—I'll admit—a hole, but I said in the beginning there would be some. The end is just like the end of Jones's case. She went back to Reddy and he killed her with, as our friend has suggested, one of the auto tools. Very soon after it would have been as that Bohemian—what's her name?—heard the scream at ten-ten."
"That's all very well," said Jones, "but before we go further I'd like you to furnish us with a motive."
"Nothing easier—jealousy."
"Jealousy!" I said, sudden and sharp.