THE PREMONITION

“I got back to our lodge not more than ten minutes after Alice did,” lamented Harold Sherrod, “but I was too late—too late! She was already dead!”

“Take it easy, young man—I realize how difficult it is, but you must pull yourself together,” said Fordney. “There—that’s better.”

“We’d been hunting together east of the lake,” Sherrod went on. “Suddenly my wife seemed to tire and said she thought she’d go back. Knowing she would find her way all right I had no hesitancy in having her go alone. I told her I’d be back in a couple of hours, but shortly after she left me thoughts of her suicide threats entered my mind. I tried to dispel them as she had been so cheerful the past month. They persisted, however, and I began to worry and become uneasy. Call it premonition if you like, but there it was—a feeling that something definitely was wrong!

“My appetite for hunting gone, I set out for the lodge and there I found her dead—a bullet through the temple—my revolver beside her. She had done it after all!” sobbed the man.

“See anyone from the time you started back to the lodge until you called the police?”

“Not a soul. It’s lonely country.”

“How far away were you?”

“Roughly, between two and three miles.”

“Surprising you didn’t overtake your wife. Would you object to a test on the polygraph—the lie-detector, Sherrod?”

“No—why should I?”

“Why? Because while I know you are lying, I warn you the polygraph will confirm it!”

Why did Fordney believe Sherrod to be implicated in his wife’s death? Turn page for solution.