“There’s an old dame downstairs, Lieutenant, who insisted on coming in. She wants to see you.”
“Did she say who she was, Cassidy?”
“She did. And you can believe it or not, sir, but her name is Molasses.”
Lieutenant Valcour made a desperate clutch at his scattering reason.
“By all means, Cassidy,” he said, “show Mrs. Molasses right up.”
Madame Velasquez, in the penetrating light of early morning, was beyond words. The intervening hours since Lieutenant Valcour had left her, wigless and talking to herself in her stepdaughter’s apartment, had unquestionably been ones of worry. As she came into the room Lieutenant Valcour motioned to Cassidy to wait outside and close the corridor door.
Over her black sequinned dress she had thrown an evening cape of blue satin edged with marabou, and on her wig rested a picture hat trimmed with plumes. Her eyes ignored the details of Endicott’s room, of Endicott’s body stretched beneath the sheet; ignored everything but Lieutenant Valcour, the man whom she had come to see.
“Marge is dead,” she said.
Her voice still retained the curious qualities that made it suggest a scream.
Lieutenant Valcour wearily closed his eyes. One other murder would truly prove to be the straw with himself in the role of the already overladen camel.
“Sit down, Madame Velasquez,” he said, “and tell me how it happened.”