Fay was dead. She had obviously been murdered and the frut dury of any law-abiding citizen was to notify the police and set the official machinery in motion without delay, Because the step was to logical, he had already started for the telephone in the living room before additional elements came rardily to the top of his mind and set in motion a whole new mental image that was both terrifying and disheartening. For he had read enough crime stories, both facrual and fictional, to know that when a wife was murdered the husband was the prime suspect. He also knew that more often than not the busband was guilty. Now, considering his own position, he saw that all available evidence pointed directly to him. For in addition to an ingrown acquisitiveness. Fay was both inquisitive and, when drinking; garrulous. Just as she had given him odd bits of information and gossip from time to time, he knew that she had told others about the present state of their marriage. The Carvers, for one, knew thar that marriage was on the rocks; Oliver and Emestina must have overheard quarrels from time to time, some of them bitter. The fact that he was in love with another woman and wanted to ger rid of his wife would almost cenainly be dis covered by the police before long. If Fay knew about the affair, and from what she had said earlier she certainly had some information abour it, then it should prove no great problem to the authorities. This in irself would be a satisfactory motive. There was one final bir of evidence thar would support a hypothetical case, and as he held out Iris hand and turned it over he knew he could not deny it. The three scratches that Fay had put there had already started to scab over and he realized it would be a simple matter the police to prove that the skin from those scratches was still under his wife's fingernaile