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now."
    "That's right. She couldn't have locked the garage door."
    "What happened after she left?"
    "I tried to dress," Montaine said, "so that I could follow her. I wanted to know where she was going. As soon as she left the room, I started getting into my clothes, but I couldn't make it. She had driven away before I had my shoes on."
    "Did you make any effort to follow her?"
    "No."
    "Why not?"
    "Because I knew I couldn't catch up with her."
    "So you waited up until she came in?"
    "No, I got back into bed."
    "What time did she come back?"
    "Some time after two thirty, and before three o'clock."
    "Did she open the garage doors then?"
    "Yes, she opened them and drove her car in."
    "Then did she close them?"
    "She tried to."
    "But she didn't?"
    "No."
    "Why?"
    "Well, sometimes when the doors are slid back, the brace on the inside of one of the doors catches on the bumper of the other car in the garage. When that happens you have to lift the doors back away from the bumper."
    "The doors caught this time?"
    "Yes."
    "Why didn't she lift them away?"
    "She wasn't strong enough."
    "So she left the garage door open?"
    "Yes."
    "How did you know all this? You were lying in bed, weren't you?"
    "But I could hear her tugging at the door. And then, when I went out to look this morning, I saw what had happened."
    "All right, go on."
    "I lay in bed, pretending to be asleep."
    "When she came in?"
    "Yes."
    "Why didn't you confront her as she came in the room and ask her where the hell she'd been?"
    "I don't know. I was afraid she'd tell me."
    "Afraid she'd tell you what?"
    "Afraid she'd tell me something that would – would -"
    Perry Mason stared steadily at the reddish-brown eyes. "You'd better," he said slowly, "finish that sentence."
    Montaine took a deep breath. "If," he said, "your wife went out at one thirty in the morning, and…"
    "I'm a bachelor," Perry Mason said, "so leave me out of it. Tell me the facts."
    Montaine fidgeted on the edge of the chair, pushed his hair back with his spread fingers. "My wife," he said, "is rather mysterious, rather secretive. I think she acquired that habit from the fact that she's been supporting herself and wasn't accountable to any one. She isn't the type to volunteer explanations."
    "That still doesn't tell me anything."
    "She was," Montaine said, "that is, she really is… What I mean to say is… well, she's very friendly with a doctor – a physician who does quite a bit of operative work at the Sunnyside Hospital."
    "What's his name?"
    "Doctor Millsap – Doctor Claude Millsap."
    "And you thought she went to meet this Doctor Millsap?" Montaine nodded, shook his head, then nodded again.
    "And you were afraid to question her because you didn't want to have your suspicions confirmed?"
    "I was afraid to ask her at the time, yes."
    "Then what happened?"
    "Then this morning I realized what must have happened."
    "When did you realize what must have happened?"
    "When I saw the paper."
    "When did you see the paper?"
    "About an hour ago."
    "Where?"
    "In a little all-night restaurant, where I stopped to get some breakfast."
    "You hadn't had breakfast before that?"
    "Yes, I got up early this morning. I didn't know just what time it was. I made some coffee and drank three or four cups of it. Then I went for a long walk, and stopped in at the restaurant on the way back. That was when I saw the newspaper."
    "Did your wife know you had gone?"
    "Yes, she got up when I was making the coffee."
    "Did she say anything?"
    "She asked me how I'd slept."
    "What did you tell her?"
    "I told her I'd slept so soundly I hadn't heard a thing all night; that I hadn't even rolled over in bed."
    "Did she make any statements?"
    "Yes, she said she'd slept very well, herself; that it must have been the chocolate that made us sleep so soundly. She said she went to bed and didn't know anything from the time her head hit the pillow until she woke up."
    "And did your wife sleep well – after she came in?" Mason asked.
    "No. She took