“Nine days before we were picked up.” Cunningham retreated moodily and sank back into his chair, and Shayne turned to the sofa and sat down with Lucy, getting a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and asking, “You say your husband is missing, Mrs. Groat? Since when and what are the circumstances?”

“Missing makes it sound so formal, Mr. Shayne.” She sat down carefully in a straight chair and took off her glasses, looking bewildered and nervous. “It’s just that… this one night, you see. After all this time when I’d just about given up Mr. Groat for lost… this first night after the Lord gave him back to me…”

“You have a right to be worried about him,” Lucy said warmly. “He went out at eight o’clock, Michael, without telling Mrs. Groat where he was going. Just that he’d be back in about an hour. And he had a definite date with Mr. Cunningham, too, for dinner, and he didn’t show up for that. So she telephoned me about it and I told her she should call the police, but she hated to do that.”

“It’s just that… Jasper has been acting queer all day,” Mrs. Groat said nervously. “He sat around without talking much, worried and moody, you might say. He expected those Hawleys to telephone him after that story in the paper and all, and he wouldn’t move away from the phone. But he wouldn’t call them when I told him to. Made him angry and he said you couldn’t understand people like that.”

“The Hawleys?” Shayne turned to lift ragged red brows at Lucy sitting beside him.

“You’d know if you’d read the News carefully. The plane that crashed was bringing a load of soldiers back from Europe and Albert Hawley was the only one who got out on a life raft alive with Mr. Groat and Mr. Cunningham. He… died before they were rescued.”

“We did our best for him,” Cunningham said sullenly. “Jasper nursed him like a father. Gave him way over his share of water and emergency rations. They can’t blame us for him dying like that.” He lifted his head and stared at them defiantly as though answering a spoken accusation.