the bed and poured two tots.
'To us,' she said. Frensic drank deeply and held out his glass for more. Cynthia smiled and handed him the bottle.
In New York Hutchmeyer was having problems too. They were of a different sort to Frensic's but since they involved three and a half million dollars the effect was much the same.
'What do you mean they aren't prepared to pay?' he yelled at MacMordie who had reported that the insurance company were holding back on compensation. 'They got to pay. I mean why should I insure my property if they aren't going to pay when it's arsonized?'
'I don't know,' said MacMordie, 'I'm just telling you what Mr Synstrom said.'
'Get me Synstrom,' yelled Hutchmeyer. MacMordie got Synstrom. He came up to Hutchmeyer's office and sat blandly regarding the great publisher through steel-rimmed glasses.
'Now I don't know what you're trying to get at ' Hutchmeyer began.
'The truth,' said Mr Synstrom. 'Just the plain truth.'
'That's okay by me,' said Hutchmeyer, 'just so long as you pay up when you've got it.'
The thing is, Mr Hutchmeyer, we know how that fire started.'
'How?'
'Someone deliberately lit the house with a can of gasolene. And that someone was your wife...'
'You know that?'
'Mr Hutchmeyer, we've got analysts who can figure out the nail varnish your wife was wearing when she opened that safe and took out that quarter of a million dollars you had stashed there.'
Hutchmeyer eyed him suspiciously. 'You can?' he said.
'Sure. And we know too she loaded that cruiser of yours with fifty gallons of gasolene. She and that Piper. He carried the cans down and we've got their prints.'
'What the hell would she do that for?'
'We thought you might have the answer to that one,' said Mr Synstrom.
'Me? I was out in the middle of the goddam bay. How should I know what was going on back at my house?'
'We wouldn't know that, Mr Hutchmeyer. Just seems a kind of coincidence you go sailing with Miss Futtle in a storm and your wife is setting out to burn your house down and fake her own death.'
Hutchmeyer paled. 'Fake her own death? Did you say...'
Mr Synstrom nodded. 'We call it the Stonehouse syndrome in the trade,' he said. 'It happens every once in a while someone wants the world to think they're dead so they disappear and leave their nearest and dearest to claim the insurance. Now you've put in a claim for three and a half million dollars and we've got no proof your wife isn't alive some place.'
Hutchmeyer stared miserably at him. He was considering the awful possibility that Baby was still around and with her she was carrying all that evidence of his tax evasions, bribes and illegal dealings that could send him to prison. By comparison the forfeiture of three and a half million dollars was peanuts.
'I just can't believe she'd do a thing like that,' he said finally. 'I mean we had a happy marriage. No problems. I gave her everything she asked for...'
'Like young men?' said Mr Synstrom.
'No, not like young men,' shouted Hutchmeyer, and felt his pulse. 'Now this Piper writer was a young man,' said Mr Synstrom, 'and from what we've heard Mrs Hutchmeyer had a taste for...'
'Are you accusing my wife of...My God, I'll...'
'We're not accusing anyone of anything, Mr Hutchmeyer. Like I've said we're trying to get at the truth.'
'And are you telling me that my wife, my own dear little Baby, filled that cruiser with
