4:29 a.m. —A Turn of the Screw
“You needn’t say anything you don’t care to, Mrs. Endicott.”
“I’m glad you didn’t use the stereotyped formula, Lieutenant. It would have disappointed me if you had. Get me a cigarette, please; there are some over there on the dresser.”
Lieutenant Valcour stood up. He got the cigarettes and lighted one for Mrs. Endicott and one for himself.
“You shouldn’t have dropped your slipper outside of the window,” he said.
“You shouldn’t have found it.”
Her eyes, now that they were opened, were admirably guarded, and her fingers, as they held the cigarette, showed no trace of nervousness.
“The slipper is of no great consequence, Mrs. Endicott. There are so many other things, too, you see.”
“Sort of a wholesale strewing of clues? I never imagined you as bothering very much with clues. It’s people you’re more interested in: reading their minds.”
Her eyes offered an almost impudent invitation that he read hers.
“Whom were you aiming at when you fired, Mrs. Endicott, at your husband or at Mr. Hollander?”
Mrs. Endicott blew smoke rings elaborately.