“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.”