'No.' She gave a little gasp. 'No, thank you.' She put her hand up to the furpiece and seemed to be trying to reach under it, behind. 'I've been wounded.
Back there. I think you'd better look at it.'
Wolfe shot me a glance, and I went.
She got the thing unfastened in front, and I pulled it around and lifted it off. I gave a gasp then myself. Not that I haven't seen a little blood here and there, but not often that much, and it was so unexpected. The back of the furpiece, inside, was soaked. The collar of her coat was soaked too. She was a sight. It was still oozing out, plenty, from gashes across the back of her neck; I couldn't tell how deep they were. She moved and it came out in a little spurt. I dropped the furpiece on the floor and said to her:
'For God's sake keep still. Don't move your head.' I looked at Wolfe and said,
'Somebody's tried to cut her head off. I can't tell how far they got.'
She spoke to Wolfe: 'My husband. He wanted to kill me.' Ј Wolfe's eyes on her were half closed.
'Then you're Dora Ritter.'
She shook her head, and the blood started, and I told her to quit. She said,
'I am Dora Chapin. I have been married three years.'
10
Wolfe didn't say anything. I stood behind her and waited, ready to catch her if she started to faint and fall forward, because I didn't know how much it might open up.
Wolfe hadn't moved. He sat looking at her with his eyes nearly shut and his lips pushing out, and in, and out and in again.
She said, 'He got into a fit. One of his cold fits.'
Wolfe said politely, ‹I didn't know Mr.
Chapin had fits. Feel her pulse.'
I reached out and got her wrist and placed my fingers. While I was counting she began to talk:
'He doesn't have fits exactly. It's a look that comes into his eyes. I am always afraid of him, but when I see that look I |am terrified. He has never done anything .to me before. This morning when I saw him look like that I said something I shouldn't have said… look here.'
She jerked her hand away from me to use it for getting into her handbag, a big leather one. Out of it she pulled something wrapped in newspaper. She unrolled the I newspaper and held up a kitchen knife m that had blood on it still wet and red. I 'He had this and I didn't know it. He must have been getting ready for me when he was out in the kitchen.'
I took the knife from her and laid it on the desk, on top of the newspaper, and said to Wolfe:
'Her pulse is on a little sprint, but it's okay.'
Wolfe put his hands on the arms of the chair, braced himself, and got to his feet. • He said, 'Please do not move, Mrs. | Chapin,' and walked around behind her and took a look at her neck. He bent down with his eyes close to her; I hadn't seen him so active for a month or more.
Peering at the gashes, he said, 'Please tilt your head forward, just a little, and • back again.' She did so, and the blood came out again; in one spot it nearly ^_ spurted at him.
Wolfe straightened up. 'Indeed. Get a doctor, Archie.'
She started to turn around at him, and I stopped her. She protested, 'I don't need a doctor. I got here, I can get home again.
I just wanted to show you, and ask you -'?
'Yes, madam. For the moment my judgment must prevail… if you please…'
I was at the phone, giving a number.
Someone answered, and I asked for Dr.
Vollmer. She said he wasn't there, he was just leaving, if it was urgent she might be able to catch him out in front. I started to ask her to do that, then it occurred to me that I might be quicker at it myself, and I hung up and took it on the trot. Fritz was in the hall dusting and I told him to stick around. As I hopped down the stoop I noticed a taxi there at the curb: our visitor's of course. A couple of hundred feet east Dr. Vollmer's blue coupe' was standing, and he was just getting in. I sprinted for •him and let out a yell. He heard me and i by the time I got there he was out on the sidewalk again. I told him about the casualty that had dropped in on us, and he got his bag out of the coupe' and came along.
In my business I've seen it proved a hundred times that one thing you never I want to leave in the bureau drawer is your curiosity. As we turned in at our stoop I took another look at the taxi standing there, I nearly lost my aplomb for a second when the driver looked straight at me and tipped me a wink.
I went on in with the doc. Fritz was in the hall and told me that Wolfe had gone to the kitchen and
