car. It really did not look plausible that he would come out in
the drizzle to see if Foster's car was safely locked in for the
night. There had been, too, a fussy fastidiousness in the way the
robe had been folded and hung over the rail. No man would do that
for some other man's property, unless he was paid for it.

Wherefore, Bud finally concluded that Foster was not above
helping himself to family property. On the whole, Bud did not
greatly disapprove of that; he was too actively resentful of his
own mother-in-law. He was not sure but he might have done
something of the sort himself, if his mother-in-law had possessed
a six-thousand-dollar car. Still, such a car generally means a
good deal to the owner, and he did not wonder that Foster was
nervous about it.

But in the back of his mind there lurked a faint
dissatisfaction with this easy explanation. It occurred to him
that if there was going to be any trouble about the car, he might
be involved beyond the point of comfort. After all, he did not
know Foster, and he had no more reason for believing Foster's
story than he had for doubting. For all he knew, it might not be
a wife that Foster was so afraid of.

Bud was not stupid. He was merely concerned chiefly with his
own affairs--a common enough failing, surely. But now that he
had thought himself into a mental eddy where his own affairs
offered no new impulse toward emotion, he turned over and over in
his mind the mysterious trip he was taking. It had come to seem
just a little too mysterious to suit him, and when Bud Moore was
not suited he was apt to do something about it.