“Don’t know any reason?” He was bellowing again. “Haven’t I been telling you that—”
“Yeah. But none of that means anything. It’s kind of childish.”
The old man flung the covers back from his legs and started to get out of bed. Then he thought better of it, raised his red face and roared:
“Stanley!”
The door opened to let the secretary glide in.
“Throw this bastard out!” his master ordered, waving a fist at me.
The secretary turned to me. I shook my head and suggested:
“Better get help.”
He frowned. We were about the same age. He was weedy, nearly a head taller than I, but fifty pounds lighter. Some of my hundred and ninety pounds were fat, but not all of them. The secretary fidgeted, smiled apologetically, and went away.
“What I was about to say,” I told the old man: “I intended talking to your son’s wife this morning. But I saw Max Thaler go into the house, so I postponed my visit.”
Elihu Willsson carefully pulled the covers up over his legs again, leaned his head back on the pillows, screwed his eyes up at the ceiling, and said:
“Hm‑m‑m, so that’s the way it is, is it?”
“Mean anything?”
“She killed him,” he said certainly. “That’s what it means.”