couldn’t swim.”
“And Marge Myles?”
“Marge Myles was famous for her swimming.”
“Then the inference is that she, well, neglected to save her husband?”
“That—and that she deliberately upset the canoe. I repeat it’s all gossip. People dropped him, you see, after he married her. That’s a commentary for you.”
“You mean they still accepted him while he was—that is, before the ceremony.”
“Yes, while he was living with her. It’s thoroughly natural, of course. People didn’t have to recognize her then; they could ignore her. But you can’t ignore a man’s wife; you either have to recognize her or not. The nots had it. If she had been a genuinely nice person, or an amusing one, I doubt whether the fact of their having lived together really would have mattered. But she wasn’t.”
“What was she before her marriage?”
“A member of that much-maligned group known as the chorus.”
“And recently she had got in touch with your husband?”
“She looked up all of Harry’s old friends. Don’t you see? As a widow she again had a standing—a shade higher, but similar to the one she held before Harry married her. I don’t know how many others she landed, but she certainly landed Herbert.”
“And you were afraid she would do something to him?”
“Well, she killed Harry.”