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"Was that it all the time?" I asked. "Well, take it from me, Worth's done nothing of the sort. He's been playing detective, not chasing off after some other man's bride." Up came the color to her cheeks, she reached that mite of a hand across to shake on the bargain with, "I'll go straight down this evening. You'll find me in Santa Ysobel when you come, Mr. Boyne."
I held his eye, but read nothing beyond what might have been the flare of quick anger for the boy's sake. "Who then?" he said. "Who's dared to lisp a word like that? That hound Cummings chasing around Santa Ysobel with Bowman is that where it comes from? I told Worth the fellow was knifing him in the back." He began to stride up and down the room.
"When did you see Worth last, Barbie? You weren't still living in Santa Ysobel when he left, were you?" I sat thinking while the girlish voices talked on. Barbie the nickname for Barbara. Barbara Wallace; the name jumped at me from a poster; that's where I first saw it. It linked itself up with what Worth had said over there about the forlorn childhood of this beguiling young charmer.
Well if this is all, then?" and at my nod, she went up the steps, turning at the side door to smile and wave at me. What a woman! I could but admire her nerve. If her alibi proved copper-fastened, as something told me it would, I had no more hope of bringing home the murder of Thomas Gilbert to Mrs. Bronson Vandeman of Santa Ysobel than I had of readjusting the stars in their courses!
I asked them, turning my head from side to side. They were looking at me strangely, and both of them were pale. Jean was trembling a little. "Who was she, Ysobel?" she said. "The little girl the men brought to play with me," I answered, still looking about me. "The big one on the black horse put her down the big one with the star here." I touched my forehead where the queer scar had been.
That ball out there has got to be made the biggest thing Santa Ysobel ever saw regardless. Come on." The crowd swallowed them up. Making for the Fremont House, I passed Dr. Bowman's stairway, and on impulse turned, ran up. I found the doctor packing, very snappish, very sorry for himself. He was leaving next day for a position in the state hospital for the insane at Sefton.
I walked out around the driveway to the early morning streets of Santa Ysobel. The little town looked as peaceful and innocent as a pan of milk. In an hour or so, its ways would be full of people rushing about getting ready for the carnival, a curious contrast to my own business, sinister, tragic.
And still no word was spoken until we had outraged the sensibilities of all whose bad luck it was to meet us, those whom we passed going at a more reasonable pace, scared a team of work horses into the ditch, and settled down to a steady whiz. We were getting away from Santa Ysobel a good deal further and a good deal faster than I felt I could afford.
Bowman proposed the health of the happy couple, his bedside manner going over pretty well, as he informed Vandeman and the rest of us that the bridegroom was a social leader in Santa Ysobel, and that the hope of its best people was to place him and his bride at the head of things there, leading off with the annual Blossom Festival, due in about a fortnight.
So it came that when we had a blow-out as the crown of a dozen other petty disasters which had delayed our progress toward Santa Ysobel, and found our spare tire flat, Barbara jumped down beside Worth where he stood dragging out the pump, and stopped him, suggesting that we save time by running the last few miles on the rim and getting fixed up at Capehart's garage.
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