“They’re almost a motive in themselves,” said Lieutenant Valcour, smiling. “Which door did he rap on, Mrs. Endicott?”
“The hall door.”
“I see. And you heard him going down the stairs?”
“One can’t hear footsteps with the door closed.”
“And that was at—?”
“The clock over there on my mantel was striking seven.”
“And after that there is nothing further you can tell me about Mr. Endicott?”
“Nothing.”
“You dined. You went to his room. You found the note. You began to worry, and then you called us up.”
“That is it.”
“Was it in this room here or up in the attic, Mrs. Endicott, that you told him you were going to kill him?”
“Here, after he—That wasn’t exactly fair, was it?”
“Heavens no, but awfully smart.” Lieutenant Valcour’s smile was the essence of pleasantness. “I do wish you’d continue with the ‘after he.’ After he did what? Or was it something he said?”
“Did.”
“Yes?”
“I told you,” she blazed, “that he was half animal. You can hardly expect me to become more explicit.”
Lieutenant Valcour was genuinely upset. “I do beg your pardon, Mrs. Endicott,” he said. “About this afternoon, were you in the house?”
“Partly. I had tea at the Ritz, early, about four-thirty—with,” she added defiantly, “a man.”
“Ah.”
“Exactly so. That will permit you to reverse another tradition and go cherchez l’homme.”
Lieutenant Valcour found instant good humour. “So you decided to fight fire with fire,” he said.
“If you care to call it that.”
“Just who is Marge Myles, and what?” Lieutenant Valcour said suddenly.
“There are several terms one might apply to her. They all mean the same thing. I believe that recently, however,” Mrs. Endicott said very distinctly, “she has lost her amateur standing.”
“Recently?”
“The past year or so.”
“Mr. Endicott had known her as long as that?”
“Until the past month or two my husband had not known her at all. He’d heard of her, of course, and so had I.”
“Then she is a woman who once had position?”
“She was the wife of one of Herbert’s friends, a man who died two years ago and left her penniless. They say, incidentally, that she killed him.”
“Killed him?”
“It was just gossip, of course. They had a camp near some obscure lake up in Maine. The canoe they were in one evening upset. Harry Myles couldn’t swim.”
“And Marge Myles?”
“Marge Myles was famous for her swimming.”
“Then the inference is that she, well, neglected to save her husband?”
“That—and that she deliberately upset the canoe. I repeat it’s all gossip. People dropped him, you see, after he married her. That’s a commentary for you.”
“You mean they still accepted him while he was—that is, before the ceremony.”
“Yes, while he was living with her. It’s thoroughly natural, of course. People didn’t have to recognize her then; they could ignore her. But you can’t ignore a man’s wife; you either have to recognize her or not. The nots had it. If she had been a genuinely nice person, or an amusing one, I doubt whether the fact of their having lived together really would have mattered. But she wasn’t.”
“What was she before her marriage?”
“A member of that much-maligned group known as the chorus.”
“And recently she had got in touch with your husband?”
“She looked up all of Harry’s old friends. Don’t you see? As a widow she again had a standing—a shade higher, but similar to the one she held before Harry married her. I don’t know how many others she landed, but she certainly landed Herbert.”
“And you were afraid she would do something to him?”
“Well, she killed Harry.”
“Then you personally believe the gossip?”
Mrs. Endicott did not bother to give a direct reply. She shrugged, and twisted a little on the chaise longue.
“And do you associate her in any way, Mrs. Endicott, with what has happened here tonight?”
She continued to evade further direct responsibility for an opinion. “Who else?” she said.
“But the actual mechanics of it, Mrs. Endicott—how could she have got into the house?”
“It could be done. Herbert himself might have let her in.”
“That’s going a little far, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It was rotten of me to suggest it. I never really thought it, Lieutenant. I just said it.”
“And after all, Mrs. Endicott, why should she want to kill your husband? You weren’t trying to keep him from her.”
“He might have been trying to keep himself from her.”
“He might. It’s stretching it a little, though, to think she’d deliberately kill him for that.”
“She wouldn’t do it deliberately.”
“I don’t know. When a woman starts out to kill she invariably chooses some weapon, or a poison. Every case has proved it again and again. But we’re only speculating, aren’t we? Who was it who took you to tea?”
“I haven’t any intention of telling you.”
“Because it might involve him?”
“He couldn’t possibly be involved. If I thought he were I’d tell you in a minute.”
Someone knocked on the door.
“Just the same, Mrs. Endicott, I wish you would tell me who he was.”
“No.”
Lieutenant Valcour was able not only to recognize finality, he could accept it. He considered Mrs. Endicott’s very definite refusal to answer his question as of small consequence; there were so many more ways than one for frying an eel. He stood up and crossed to the door. He opened it and stepped into the corridor, closing the door behind him. Even in the dimmish light young Cassidy’s normally ruddy face was the colour of chalk.
“What’s happened, Cassidy?”
“Honest to God, Lieutenant, I’m scared stiff. They’re getting things ready in there to bring that corpse back to life.”
VI
10:32 p.m.—Pictures in Dust
Lieutenant Valcour stared for a puzzled instant at the white face.
“What do you mean, Cassidy?” he said.
“Honest to God, Lieutenant, I mean just what I say.”
“But that’s impossible.”
Cassidy went even further. “It’s sacrilege,” he said.
“Nonsense,” Lieutenant Valcour said sharply. “You have simply misunderstood Dr. Worth. It is possible that Mr. Endicott was not dead at all but in some state of catalepsy. No one, Cassidy, can bring back the
