'So Mr. Hibbard informed me. What sort of maid was she?'
'What^sort?'
'Was she in your office, for instance?'
Burton was frowning. 'No. She was my wife^s maid.',,.
'How long have you known her and how long has Chapin known her? – Wait.' Wolfe wiggled a finger. 'I must ask you to bear with me, Dr. Burton. I have just received a shock and am floundering in confusion. I have read all of Paul Chapin's novels, and so naturally supposed myself to be in possession of a fairly complete understanding of his character, his temperament, his processes of thought and his modes of action. I thought him incapable of following any of the traditional channels leading to matrimony, either emotional or practical.
Learning that he has a wife, I am greatly shocked; I am even desperate. I need to have disclosed everything about her that is discoverable.'
'Oh. You do.' Burton looked at him, sizing him up, with sour steadiness. 'Then I might as well disclose it myself. It was common gossip.' He glanced at the others. 'I knew that, though naturally it didn^t reach my ears. If I show reluctance, it is only because it was… unpleasant.'
'Yes.'}?
'Yes, it was. I presume you don't know that of all of us, this group, I was the only one who knew Paul Chapin before the college days. We came from the same town – I more or less grew up with him.
He was in love with a girl. I knew her – one of the girls I knew, that was all. He was infatuated with her, and he finally, through persistence, reached an understanding with her before he went away to college. Then the accident occurred, and he was crippled, and it was all off. In my opinion it would'have been off anyway, sooner or later, without the intervention of an accident. I didn't go home for my vacations; I spent my summers working. It wasn't until after I was through with medical school that I went back for a visit, and discovered that this girl had become… that is… I married her.' w He glanced aside at Cabot9 s cigarette case thrust at him by the lawyer, shook his head, turned back to Wolfe and went on, 'We came to New York. I was lucky in my profession; I have a good bedside manner and a knack with peopled insides, especially women. I made a lot of money.
I think it was in 1923 that my wife engaged Dora Ritter – yes, she was with us eight years. Her competence was a jewel in a nigger's ear -'
'Ethiope.' '
'Well, that's a nigger. One day Paul came to me and said he was going to marry my wife's maid. That was what was unpleasant. He made a nasty scene out of it.'
Wolfe inclined his head. ‹I can imagine him explaining that the action contemplated was by way of a paraphrase on the old institution of whipping-boy.'
Dr. Burton jerked his head up, startled, and stared at him. 'How the devil did you know that?'
'He said that?'
'Those words. He said paraphrase.'
'I suspected he would have lit on that.'
Wolfe scratched his ear, and I knew he was pleased. 'Having read his novels, I am not unacquainted with his style of thought and his taste in allusion. – So he married her. She, of course, having but one jewel and the rest all slag, would not be finicky.
Do they make a happy pair? Do you ever see her?'
'Not frequently.' Burton hesitated, then went on, 'I see her very seldom. She comes once or twice a week to dress my wife^s hair, and occasionally to sew. I am usually not at home.'
Wolfe murmured. 'It is a temptation to cling to competence when we find it.'
Burton nodded. 'I suppose so. My wife finds it impossible to forgo the indulgence.
Dora is an expert hag.'™
'Well.' Wolfe took some beer. 'Thank you, doctor. It has often been said, you will find romance in the most unlikely spots. Mr. Chapin's no longer upsets me, since it fits my presumptions. By the way, this probably clears up another point.
Permit me. – Archie, would you ask Mr.
Farrell to join us?'
I went and got Farrell and brought him over. He was brisk; the Scotch was putting some spring into him. He gave Wolfe an amiable look.
'Mr. Farrell. Earlier this evening you remarked to Dr. Burton that it was a wonder he was not the first. I supposed that you meant, the first victim of Mr.
Chapin's campaign. Did that remark mean anything in particular?'
Farrell looked uncomfortable. 'Did I say that?'
'You did.' '
'I don't remember it. I suppose I thought I was cracking a joke, I don't know.'
Wolfe said patiently, 'Dr. Burton has just been telling me the exegesis of Chapin's marriage and the former occupation of his wife. I thought perhaps -'
'Oh, he has.' Farrell shot a glance at
