9:24 p.m. —Hallmarks of Murder
Lieutenant Valcour felt that the utter stillness of the room would overwhelm him. He— Mrs. Endicott—everything seemed to be taking its cue from death. He reached past Mrs. Endicott and touched the body’s cheek. It was quite cold.
“Where is your room, Mrs. Endicott?”
He carefully pried her fingers from the knob of the cupboard door and then closed it.
“But you can’t leave him in that cupboard.”
Her voice held the toneless qualities of arrested emotion, as if the functioning of her nerve centres had stopped.
“We must leave him in there, Mrs. Endicott, until someone from the medical examiner’s office has seen him. If you’ll tell me the name of your family physician before you lie down—”
“Lie down—I? Lie down?”
“Yes, and rest. I’ll call the doctor up on the possible chance that we’re mistaken, only I’m quite certain, Mrs. Endicott, that we aren’t.”
She stumbled verbally in her rush. “Worth— Dr. Sanford Worth—Calumet 876—it’s 876 something—I know it perfectly well. I—it’s in my book—come with me.”
She seemed mechanically vitalized, and her movements were those of a nervous, jerky toy. She flung open a door adjacent to the cupboard. It led