Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/59

 "They had a scrap before he shot her. She must have marked him, some. Well, Ketlar's hurt on the head. Fresh. You'll see it."

"How does he explain it?" Calvin asked.

"He says he ran into a door."

"Here?"

"Oh, no. He ain't been here at all to-night—according to his story. He'd been comin' here whenever he wanted to recently—to see his daughter, he says. He'd left the little wife. She was good enough for him five years ago when he married her. But since then he got his band, and the coin come rolling in. And the ladies sure liked him. Women and girls—you'll find a regular beauty show at his place. You'll see what was the matter with him and why he wanted to get rid of the little wife. . . ."

Denson went on, relating the events of the night in their order, as he discerned them. Ketlar was tired of his wife; he had admitted that he had tried to "tie the can" to her; but she had hung on to him.

Ketlar had left his orchestra early this evening, although it was Saturday and a big dance night at the Echo, and he had come to his flat about twelve o'clock, where he had met up with a girl calling herself Joan Daisy Royle. She said she was a stenographer working in an office in the loop.

She and Ketlar had been in his flat, drinking together. Probably they had gone together to the lake; but they told different stories about it, the girl admitting that she visited the lake about midnight, but Ketlar denying that he had. His story of what he did was full of holes.

Probably Ketlar went in alone to see his wife and threaten her or force her to make some sort of an agreement to divorce him. It was likely enough that the Royle girl stayed outside. Anyway, she swore that she had.

Well, Ketlar and his wife got in a scrap and he shot