“Then you personally believe the gossip?”
Mrs. Endicott did not bother to give a direct reply. She shrugged, and twisted a little on the chaise longue.
“And do you associate her in any way, Mrs. Endicott, with what has happened here tonight?”
She continued to evade further direct responsibility for an opinion. “Who else?” she said.
“But the actual mechanics of it, Mrs. Endicott—how could she have got into the house?”
“It could be done. Herbert himself might have let her in.”
“That’s going a little far, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It was rotten of me to suggest it. I never really thought it, Lieutenant. I just said it.”
“And after all, Mrs. Endicott, why should she want to kill your husband? You weren’t trying to keep him from her.”
“He might have been trying to keep himself from her.”
“He might. It’s stretching it a little, though, to think she’d deliberately kill him for that.”
“She wouldn’t do it deliberately.”
“I don’t know. When a woman starts out to kill she invariably chooses some weapon, or a poison. Every case has proved it again and again. But we’re only speculating, aren’t we? Who was it who took you to tea?”
“I haven’t any intention of telling you.”