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any moment the world might discover that for three years or more she had gone about burdened with a terrible secret.”

“What secret?” Charlie inquired.

“This morning,” Tarneverro continued, “you spoke of Denny Mayo, who was found dead in his home in Los Angeles some three years ago. The police have been at sea on the case from the start. But Shelah Fane—she knew who murdered Denny Mayo. She was in Mayo’s house, paying a harmless call, on the night of the murder. The door-bell rang, and she foolishly hid in another room. She saw the thing done. All this she confessed to me this morning. What is more, she told me that Denny Mayo’s murderer is at this moment in Honolulu.”

Charlie’s eyes gleamed in the dark. “She told you the name?”

Tarneverro shook his head. “I’m sorry. She didn’t want to, and I made no effort to press her. Her reason, of course, for not revealing her connection with this affair at the time, was that to do so would ruin her career. She has kept silent all these years, but she hesitated to marry a man of whom she was really fond and perhaps drag him through some very unpleasant publicity later on.”

“A natural hesitation,” Chan approved. “You encouraged it?” He had stopped the car in the drive of Shelah’s house, but he made no move to alight.

“I did, of course,” Tarneverro said. “More than that, I strongly advised her to lift this burden from her mind and find peace at last. I assured her that if she revealed the name of the guilty person of her own accord, no police in the world would be inclined