“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.