“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“Not at all, Doctor.”
Lieutenant Valcour went outside. He found the maid Jane in the hallway, seated on a chair near the stairs, trembling. A tray with an empty glass was on the floor beside her. She saw him, picked up the tray, and stood up.
“I’m that upset, sir,” she said, “that upset.”
“Something has startled you?”
“Startled! Glory be, sir—what with this bringing back of the dead and the missus gone into a coma—if it wasn’t for them three cops at the downstairs doors I’d be out of this house this minute, and so would the rest of us, too.”
“How many of the ‘rest of you’ are there?”
“Sure and including the housekeeper there’s eight of us, sir.”
The Endicotts, Lieutenant Valcour was now quite certain, must be multimillionaires.
“All women?”
“Except for the houseman and chauffeur.”
“And do they sleep in the house?”
“The chauffeur does not, sir. He has an apartment for himself and his wife and his three-year-old child, named Katie, over the garage in East Sixty-sixth Street, sir.”
“Have all of you been in service here a long time?”
“Indeed and we haven’t, sir—except for Roberts and the housekeeper. I’ve been here a month myself, and the rest of us not more than two or three.”
“And Roberts has been Mrs. Endicott’s maid for the past several years, say?”
“And sure and ever since she landed here from England, sir.”
“Roberts is an Englishwoman?”
“Hold your whisht, sir, and I’ll tell you that she’s of the aristocracy, no less.”
Lieutenant Valcour considered this gravely. It was not improbable. Many English families were utterly wrecked financially by the war, and the children had scattered whither they could, like sparrows, in search of bread. “You’re sure of this?” he said.
“And indeed it is common knowledge, sir. The housekeeper herself, it was, who told me.”
Lieutenant Valcour switched suddenly. “I wonder whether you could tell me who Mr. Endicott’s intimate friends were,” he said.
“Well, sir, there’s quite a few people have called on the madam off and on, and a few on Mr. Endicott, too. I couldn’t say, though, as to just how intimate.”
“But didn’t he ever discuss his friends?”
“Not before me, sir. I’m one of the downstairs girls. Perhaps Roberts would know. She’s often in the room with the madam and Mr. Endicott even when the pair of them is quarrelling that hard that—Glory be to—”
“Tut, tut,” said Lieutenant Valcour gently. “Married couples are always quarrelling together. There’s nothing unusual in that.”
“Indeed and there ain’t.”
“I wonder whether you’d ask Roberts to come out here and see me.”
“I will, sir.”
“Oh—and will you also tell whoever has to know about it that Dr. Worth plans to stay here all night? And then let him know, please, where he is to sleep.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jane went to the door of Mrs. Endicott’s room and knocked. Nurse Vickers opened it and stepped halfway out, blocking the entrance. Their voices were too low for Lieutenant Valcour to hear, but he saw the nurse retreat into the room, caught an affirmative nod from Jane, and presently Roberts came out and toward him.
“You wished to see me, Lieutenant?”
There was still that curious shielding in her eyes—a hinting at definite information kept closely guarded behind twin gates.
“I want you to tell me,” he said quietly, “why you compelled me a while ago in Mrs. Endicott’s room to say ‘Later.’ ”
“I don’t believe I quite understand.”
“And I believe that you do.”
Roberts became coolly detached. “One is justified in having one’s beliefs.”
“Just why do you hate Mrs. Endicott so?”
She flinched as if he had struck her physically.
“Is that why you sent for me?” she said.
Lieutenant Valcour himself indulged in a veiling of eyes. “I wish,” he said, “that you would sit down.”
IX
11:55 p.m.—Queer Deeps
Roberts went indifferently to the chair that Jane had been using and sat down. Lieutenant Valcour drew another up beside her. He began with the usual distant skirmishing before launching the main body of his attack.
“I will explain why I wanted to see you,” he said. “It’s concerning Mr. Endicott—concerning his condition.” He noted the sudden reflex from tension on the part of her hands as he summed up concisely the statement made to him by Dr. Worth. “I understand,” he concluded, “that Mrs. Endicott is under the influence of a narcotic and will not be available before tomorrow morning at the earliest. Dr. Worth naturally wants to prevent all risk, and so we’ve turned to you.”
He felt her staring through him, as if by some fourth-dimensional process his being had been erased from her vision.
“Mr. Endicott has very few friends,” she said.
“You are taking the word at its literal meaning.”
“Oh, quite. His acquaintances are numerous and transient.” She focused him into an entity again. “They are mostly women. I don’t suppose one of them would do?”
Lieutenant Valcour smiled slightly. “Not if their status is so uncertain—their emotional status, I mean.”
“Exactly.” The masked effect of her attitude remained unchanged as she asked with almost perfunctory detachment, “Would a man do?”
“Why not?”
“Because there is one man of whom Mr. Endicott speaks quite frequently as being his ‘best’ friend.”
“Here in town?”
“In a bachelor apartment on East Fifty-second Street.”
“You have his exact address?”
“It is in the memorandum book beside the telephone in Mrs. Endicott’s room.”
Lieutenant Valcour grew markedly casual. “A mutual friend, then?”
“One couldn’t say.”
“He is your only suggestion?”
“He is the only man to whom I have heard Mr. Endicott refer in terms of friendship and of intimacy.”
“Then there really isn’t any choice.”
Roberts’ smile signified nothing. “No choice.”
“Have you ever seen this man?”
“His name is Mr. Thomas Hollander. I have never seen him.”
“Has anyone in the household ever seen him, to your knowledge?”
“I dare say. I don’t know. One could inquire.”
Lieutenant Valcour recognized the rising inflection at each period mark, a habit so much in vogue among certain types
