Mrs. Brenner, tortured by those long significant glances,
said roughly. "That's Mart's mother. She ain't right! What are you
bothering us for?"
Dick Roamer put out a hand to plead for her, and tapped Munn on the
arm. There was something touching in her frightened old face.
"A man--a stranger was killed up on the hill," Munn told her.
"What's that got to do with us?" she countered.
"Not a thing, Mrs. Brenner, probably, but I've just to make sure
where every man in the village was this afternoon."
Mrs. Brenner's lids flickered. She felt the questioning intentness
of Sheriff Munn's eyes on her stolid face and she felt that he did
not miss the tremor in her eyes.
"Where was your son this afternoon?"
She smiled defiance. "I told you, on the beach."
"Whose room is that?" Munn's forefinger pointed to Tobey's closed
door.
"That's Tobey's room," said his mother.
"The mud tracks go into that room. Did he make those tracks,
Mrs. Brenner?"
"No! Oh, no! No!" she cried desperately. "Mart made those when he
came in. He went into Tobey's room!"
"How about it, Brenner?"
Mart smiled with an indulgent air. "Heard what she said, didn't you?"
"Is it true?"
Mart smiled more broadly. "Olga'll take my hair off if I don't agree
with her," he said.
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