Lieutenant Valcour did not consider it essential to reach out and turn the page. His fingers absently busied themselves with the leather sheath for, presumably, a metal paper cutter or, perhaps, a stiletto.
“Yes, he is an honourable and an upright gentleman, sir, and if you think there is anything wrong with him in the Endicott business”—Mr. Smith temporarily moved north of the Mason and Dixon Line—“you’re all wet.”
Mr. Smith was through.
“For how long has he known Endicott, Mr. Smith?”
“As I’ve been telling you, Lieutenant, ever since that night he saved Endicott’s life.”
Lieutenant Valcour became almost embarrassing in the sudden focusing of his attention. “Would it bother you very much, Mr. Smith, to tell me of that occurrence again?”
“Why, it’s just as I’ve been saying, Lieutenant, in the war—the war.”
“Oh, of course. Endicott and Hollander were in the same outfit, and Hollander saved Endicott’s life.”
“You can prove it, sir, if you wish. Just call up the Bronx armoury and ask for the adjutant—in the morning, of course, as he wouldn’t be there now. He’ll make it official.”
“Oh, I believe it all right, Mr. Smith. It’s a very reasonable explanation of why Endicott should be so intimate with one of your friends.”
“I swear you have me wrong, Lieutenant. I had no more to do with that gilt-knuckles job than—” Mr. Smith sought desperately for a convincing simile—“than a babe unborn.”
“It isn’t any of my business anyway, Mr. Smith, even if you had,” said Lieutenant Valcour soothingly. He tapped the leather sheath he was holding against his fingers. “I suppose Hollander was even quite prominent at the wedding, when Endicott was married?”
“Prominent? He was the best man.”
“Really. Well, well. Mrs. Endicott is indeed a very beautiful woman, and from all that she has told me, a much misunderstood one.”
Mr. Smith poised himself delicately upon the fence and remained watchful.
“It must have been rather a problem for Hollander,” Lieutenant Valcour went on reflectively, “when she told him this afternoon during their tea at the Ritz that she was faced with one of two things.”
“What do you mean, Lieutenant?”
“Didn’t he tell you?”
“Tell me what, Lieutenant?”
“That Mrs. Endicott told him she couldn’t stand it any longer: that she either was going to kill her husband or else commit suicide.”
Mr. Smith smothered a sharp intaking of breath.
“Oh, you know how women talk, Lieutenant. It’s just talk.”
“Then he wasn’t impressed, really?”
“Why, of course not. No more so than you or I would have been.”
“He got back here from the Ritz at six?”
“About.”
“And stayed here until I phoned him?”
Mr. Smith looked a little baffled. “Well, not exactly, Lieutenant.”
“Just how exactly, Mr. Smith?”
“Why, you see, he left for dinner right after he came in.”
“Just after six?”
“Near six-thirty.”
“And what time did he get back from dinner?”
“I wasn’t here, Lieutenant. I had a date and didn’t get back here myself until around midnight.”
Lieutenant Valcour became very, very casual.
“Did Hollander plan to marry Mrs. Endicott after she’d got the divorce?” he said.
“Golly, no. There wasn’t going to be any divorce. It was platonic—and damned if I don’t believe it.”
“It’s quite possible.”
“I have never seen her—but to hear Tom rave!”
“She is very beautiful.”
“Lieutenant,” Mr. Smith’s exceedingly attractive dark eyes stared solemnly into Lieutenant Valcour’s veiled ones, “he thinks she’s a saint. I mean it.”
“Dark and strange,” muttered Lieutenant Valcour. “Dark and strange.”
“What’s dark and strange, Lieutenant?”
“The rather terrible things that sometimes happen, Mr. Smith, under the patronage of love.”
“I’ll be damned if you talk like a cop,” said Mr. Smith, suddenly very suspicious.
“Then I’m afraid you are damned, Mr. Smith. What,” Lieutenant Valcour asked suddenly, “was kept in this?”
Mr. Smith, momentarily distracted from his suspicions by the abrupt switch, stared at the leather sheath Lieutenant Valcour was holding out at him.
“Some sort of a sticker that Tom picked up on the other side,” he said. “Damascus steel, he calls it. Uses it for a paper knife.”
“I wonder why it isn’t in its sheath,” said Lieutenant Valcour mildly.
“Search me.”
Lieutenant Valcour poked around among the papers.
“It isn’t here in this secretary, either.”
“Well, I don’t know where it is, Lieutenant. It was there this afternoon.”
“I don’t know where it is either, Mr. Smith, but I’m going to find out.”
“Go ahead.”
“Where was it you saw it this afternoon? On this secretary?”
“Yes.”
Lieutenant Valcour’s search of the secretary was swift and thorough. The pigeonholes, the drawers yielded no stiletto of Damascus steel. Hidden in one of the drawers was a copy of the Oxford Book of English Verse. That interested him momentarily. He gave it sufficient attention to note that the most used portion included the Sonnets of Shakespeare. But there was no time now—no time.
“I’m going through the rooms here,” he said, “and look for that stiletto.”
“You’ll be exceeding your authority if you do, Lieutenant.”
“Have you any objections?” Lieutenant Valcour asked quietly.
Mr. Smith grew almost fervent in his protestations that he had none. Why should he? He had nothing to conceal, nor had Hollander. Of course, there were a bottle or two of gin and a quart of Scotch, but he didn’t imagine the lieutenant would be interested in anything along that line. No, the lieutenant assured him, he wouldn’t be. Liquor was not in his province. Then it would be all right to go ahead and search? Lieutenant Valcour wanted to know. Oh, quite.
In spite of his verbal acquiescence Mr. Smith followed Lieutenant Valcour through the two other rooms of the apartment with a gradually growing air of truculence. He stood near and a little behind him when, after the search yielded nothing, Lieutenant Valcour went to a telephone and dialled the Endicotts’ number.
Lieutenant Valcour did not get the connection, because Mr. Smith drew a pliable leather-bound slug of lead from his pocket and struck Lieutenant Valcour with it on the head.
XV
2:13 a.m.—The Thin Steel Blade
Miss Murrow began to feel fidgety.
Even after the many, many years she had spent in nursing she had never accustomed herself to
