The attendant filled my cup and made change without waking, moving as if his starched coat was holding him up.

I sat at the shining enameled counter, slowly burning my throat with coffee and thinking with a chilly three o’clock brain. Ruth was clear, of murder at any rate. But the Schneiders’ alibi was at least as good. Maybe I was all wrong and maybe Alec had been all wrong. Maybe Haggerty and Galloway and Helen were right about suicide. Maybe I should go home and go to bed.

(cf. Macdonald, Ross. The Dark Tunnel.)