First, Mrs. Mion had Hand has money of her own. That was an added attraction for Mion. It wasn't for me. I'm just telling you." "Thank you. And the second?" "The second was Mrs. Mion's reason for not leaving fion immediately. I suppose you know he had been i top tenor at the Met for five or six years, and his piroice was gone--temporarily. Gifford James, the bari|ft0ne, had hit him on the neck with his fist and hurt his sc--that was early in March--and Mion couldn't the season. It had been operated, but his voice in't come back, and naturally he was glum, and Mrs. ilBon wouldn't leave him under those circumstances. I ied to persuade her to, but she wouldn't. I wasn't ; like normal that day, on account of what had ened to me for the first time in my life, and on nt of what Mion had said to me, so I wasn't rea Iflpnable and I left her in the park and went downtown > a bar and started drinking. A lot of time went by I had quite a few, but I wasn't pickled. Along seven o'clock I decided I had to see her again 1 carry her off so she wouldn't spend another night That mood took me back to East End Avenue up to the twelfth floor, and then I stood there in t hall a while, perhaps ten minutes, before my finger ent to the pushbutton. Finally I rang, and the maid

6 Rex Stout

let me in and went for Mrs. Mion, but I had lost my nerve or something. All I did was suggest that we should have a talk with Mion together. She agreed, and we went upstairs and--"

"Using the elevator?"

"No, the stairs inside the apartment. We entered the studio. Mion was on the floor. We went over to him. There was a big hole through the top of his head. He was dead. I led Mrs. Mion out, made her come, and on the stairs--they're too narrow to go two abreast--she fell and rolled halfway down. I carried her to her room and put her on her bed, and I started for the living room, for the phone there, when I thought of something to do first. I went out and took the elevator to the ground floor, got the doorman and elevator man together, and asked them who had been taken up to the Mion apartment, either the twelfth floor or the thirteenth, that afternoon.