The inspector knew as he left that this was wishful thinking. Nevertheless, he made a mental note to look into Garth's financial background.

Brian Thayer had a downtown address. He lived in an apartment house not over three or four years old, a reclaimed island of landscaped brick and glass on the fringe of the business district.

He occupied a two bedroom apartment on the fourth floor, using the second bedroom as his office. Airy and bright, the apartment was furnished with good modern furniture, rugs, and draperies. Done by a professional decorator, Madden thought, and somehow as impersonal, as unremarkable as its occupant. In Dunston the rent would run close to two hundred a month; in Medfield, perhaps twenty-five less, not all of it paid by Thayer, who could charge off one room on his expense account.

He took Madden into the room he used as an office. It contained a desk, files, a typewriter on a stand, and two big leather armchairs. A newspaper open at stock-market reports lay on one of them. Thayer folded it up and offered a drink.

The inspector declined. To begin the interview, he asked if Thayer, with more time to think it over, could add to what he had said the other day about Johnston.

Thayer shook his head. ``It's all I think about, too. That and her death. It's still unbelievable that it was murder. For all her domineering ways, I cann't conceive of her having had a deadly enemy.''