“Yes, I suppose I could have,” he said, realizing she had made him uncomfortable. “But you were telling me you were robbed. What happened?”
There was a brief tap at the door, and Edward F. Joiner, a slight, soft-spoken man in his middle twenties who was Irene Craig’s secretary, came in, carrying a silver coffee set. He smiled at Martha Peebles, and she returned it shyly, as he set the service on the table.
“I’ll pour, Ed,” Payne said. “Thank you.”
Martha Peebles took her coffee black, and did not care for a doughnut or other pastry.
“You were saying you were robbed?” Payne said.
“At home,” she said. “In Chestnut Hill.”
“How exactly did it happen? A burglar?”
“No, I’m quite sure it’s not a burglar,” she said. “I even think I know who did it.”
“Why don’t you start at the very beginning?” Payne said.
Martha Peebles told Brewster Payne that two weeks before, two weeks plus a day, her brother Stephen had brought home a young man he had met.
“A tall, rather good-looking young man,” she said. “His name was Walton Williams. Stephen said that he was studying theater at the University of Pennsylvania.”
“And is your brother interested in the theater?” Payne asked, carefully.
“I think rather more in young actors than in the theater, per se,” Martha Peebles said, matter-of-factly, with neither disapproval nor embarrassment in her voice.
“I see,” Payne said.
“Well, they stayed downstairs, in the recreation room, and I went to my room. And then, a little after midnight, I heard them saying good night on the portico, which is directly under my windows.”
“And you think there’s a chance this Williams chap is involved in the robbery?”
“There’s no question about it,” she said.
“How can you be sure?”
“I saw him,” she said.
“I’m afraid I’ve become lost somewhere along the way,” Payne said.
“Well, the next night, about half-past eight, I was having a bath when the doorbell rang. I ignored it—”
“Was there anyone else in the house? Your brother? Help?”
“We keep a couple,” she said. “But they leave about seven. And Stephen wasn’t there. He had gone to Paris that morning.”
“So you were alone in the house?”
“Yes, and since I wasn’t expecting anyone, I just ignored the bell.”
“I see. And then what happened?”
“I heard noises in my bedroom. The door opening, then the sound of drawers opening. So I got out of the tub, put a robe on, and opened the door a crack. And there was Walton Williams, at my dresser, going through my things.”
“What did you do then?” Payne asked. This is a very stupid young woman, he thought. She could have gotten herself in serious difficulty, killed, even, just walking in on a situation like that.
And then he changed “stupid” in his mind to “naive” and “inexperienced and overprotected.”
“I asked him just what he thought he was doing,” Martha Peebles said, “and he just looked at me for a moment, obviously surprised to find someone home, and then he ran out of the room and down the stairs and out of the house.”