I expected to see the first Mrs. Estep arrive sometime during the evening, but she didn’t. Bob and I sat around and talked and watched Ledwich’s doorway, and the hours passed.
At one o’clock Ledwich came out alone.
“I’m going to tail him, just for luck,” Bob said, and caught up his cap.
Ledwich vanished around a corner, and then Bob passed out of sight behind him.
Five minutes later Bob was with me again.
“He’s getting his machine out of the garage.”
I jumped for the telephone and put in a rush order for a fast touring car.
Bob, at the window, called out, “Here he is!”
I joined Bob in time to see Ledwich going into his vestibule. His car stood in front of the house. A very few minutes, and Boyd and Ledwich came out together. Boyd was leaning heavily on Ledwich, who was supporting the little man with an arm across his back. We couldn’t see their faces in the dark, but the little man was plainly either sick, drunk, or drugged!
Ledwich helped his companion into the touring car. The red taillights laughed back at us for a few blocks, and then disappeared. The automobile I had ordered arrived twenty minutes later, so we sent it back unused.
At a little after three that morning, Ledwich, alone and afoot, returned from the direction of his garage. He had been gone exactly two hours.