Mrs. Endicott’s slender hand and arm were models of quietness in motion as she reached for a cigarette. “Everything wears off with usage,” she said. “Love quicker than anything else.”
“But it doesn’t wear off completely, love doesn’t, ever.”
Mrs. Endicott looked at him sharply. “Why are you a detective?” she said.
“The accident of birth—of environment. Only geniuses, you know, ever quite escape those two fatalities. My parents emigrated from France to Canada, where my father held a certain reputation in my present profession. My parents died. There was enough money to secure an education at McGill—one had contacts here in the States …” Lieutenant Valcour smiled infectiously. “I reversed Caesar in that I came, was seen, was conquered.”
Mrs. Endicott was amused. “How utterly conceited.”
“Isn’t it?”
The smile vanished from her face with the peculiar suddenness of some conjuring trick. She veered abruptly. “What are they doing in my husband’s room now?” she said.
“ Dr. Worth and the medical examiner are determining the cause of death.” Lieutenant Valcour transferred his attention to a Sargent watercolour above the mantel. “ Dr. Worth has already expressed the opinion that it was heart failure,” he said.
Mrs. Endicott offered no immediate comment. She withdrew, for a moment, into some private chamber, and her voice was rather expressionless when she spoke. “But that isn’t murder.”
“It could be—if the disease itself were used as a weapon.”
“I don’t believe that I understand.”