“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?”