He pressed a push button set in the wall at the head of the bed.
“Yes, but I don’t want her.”
“You may, and there’s no harm in her being with you. I’m going to leave you in here for a little while, until the people we’ve telephoned for come.”
“You insist on my staying in this room?”
“Heavens, no. Do anything you like, Mrs. Endicott, or that you feel will help you. As long,” he added gently, “as you don’t leave the house.”
“Oh.”
“You see we’ll have to talk such a lot of things over, just as soon as the usual formalities are finished.”
“It’s rather terrible, isn’t it?”
“Pretty terrible, Mrs. Endicott.”
“So”—she mentally groped for a satisfactory word—“so conclusive.”
It seemed a peculiar choice. Lieutenant Valcour sensed that it wasn’t just Endicott’s life alone which was concluded by death, but something else as well—such as an argument, perhaps, or a secret and bitter struggle. The precise significance was elusive, and he gave it up, or rather checked it within his memory in that compartment which already contained six barely smoked cigarette butts, a broken finger nail, bruise marks, and a note which, in view of the body, might safely be presumed to have been a threat.
A maid knocked on the door and came in. She stared speculatively for a curious second at Lieutenant Valcour.
“Madam rang?”