“For evidence.”
“Evidence? What do you need? You’ve—”
“Don’t be a chump,” I interrupted his bawling. “Why should she kill him?”
“Because she’s a French hussy! Because she—”
The secretary’s frightened face appeared at the door.
“Get out of here!” the old man roared at it, and the face went.
“She jealous?” I asked before he could go on with his shouting. “And if you don’t yell maybe I’ll be able to hear you anyway. My deafness is a lot better since I’ve been eating yeast.”
He put a fist on top of each hump his thighs made in the covers and pushed his square chin at me.
“Old as I am and sick as I am,” he said very deliberately, “I’ve a great mind to get up and kick your behind.”
I paid no attention to that, repeating:
“Was she jealous?”
“She was,” he said, not yelling now, “and domineering, and spoiled, and suspicious, and greedy, and mean, and unscrupulous, and deceitful, and selfish, and damned bad—altogether damned bad!”
“Any reason for her jealousy?”
“I hope so,” he said bitterly. “I’d hate to think a son of mine would be faithful to her. Though likely enough he was. He’d do things like that.”
“But you don’t know any reason why she should have killed him?”