“This is the room?” I asked.
“Yes.” She had a pleasant, slightly husky voice.
I crossed to the window and looked down on the grocer’s roof, and on the half of the back street that was visible. I was still in a hurry.
“ Mrs. Main,” I said as I turned, trying to soften the abruptness of my words by keeping my voice low, “after your husband was dead, you threw the gun out the window. Then you stuck the handkerchief to the corner of the wallet and threw that. Being lighter than the gun, it didn’t go all the way to the alley, but fell on the roof. Why did you put the handkerchief—?”
Without a sound she fainted.
I caught her before she reached the floor, carried her to a sofa, found Cologne and smelling salts, applied them.
“Do you know whose handkerchief it was?” I asked when she was awake and sitting up.
She shook her head from left to right.
“Then why did you take that trouble?”
“It was in his pocket. I didn’t know what else to do with it. I thought the police would ask about it. I didn’t want anything to start them asking questions.”
“Why did you tell the robbery story?”
No answer.
“The insurance?” I suggested.
She jerked up her head, cried defiantly: