“What would lie do that for?”
“Suppose he married me to get revenge on Clyde,” she said, “and– You know he did urge me to conie over here and try to get some money from Clyde. Maybe I suggested it–I don’t know–but he did urge me. And then suppose he happened to run into Julia. She knew him, of course, because they worked for Clyde at the same time. And he knew I was going over to see her that afternoon and was afraid if I made her mad she might expose him to me and so– Couldn’t that be?”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all. Besides, you and he left here together that afternoon. He wouldn’t’ve had time to–”
“But my taxicab was awfully slow,” she said, “and then i may have stopped somewhere on– I think I did. I think I stopped at a drug store to get some aspirin.” She nodded energetically. “I remember I did.”
“And he knew you were going to stop, because you had told him,” I suggested. “You can’t go on like this, Mimi. Murder’s serious. It’s nothing to frame people for just because then played tricks on you.”
“Tricks?” she asked, glaring at me. “Why, that . . .” She called Jorgensen all the usual profane, obscene, and otherwise insulting names, her voice gradually rising until towards the end she was screaming into my face.
When she stopped for breath I said: “That’s pretty cursing, but it–”
“He even had the nerve to hint that I might’ve killed her,” she told me. “He didn’t have nerve enough to ask me, but he kept leading up to it until I told him positively that–well, that I didn’t do it.”
“That’s not what you started to say. You told him positively what?”
She stamped her foot. “Stop heckling me.”
“All right and to hell with you,” I said. “Coming here wasn’t my idea.” I started towards my hat and coat.
She ran after me, caught my arm. “Please, Nick, I’m sorry. It’s this rotten temper of mine. I don’t know what I–”
Gilbert came in and said: “I’ll go along part of the way with you.”
Mimi scowled at him. “You were listening.”
“How could I help it, the way you screamed?” he asked. “Can I have some money?”
“And we haven’t finished talking,” she said.
I looked at my watch. “I’ve got to run, Mimi. It’s late.”
“Will you come back after you get through with your date?”
“If it’s not too late. Don’t wait for me.”
“I’ll be here,” she said, “It doesn’t matter how late it is.”
I said I would try to make it. She gave Gilbert his money. He and I went downstairs.
19
“I was listening,” Gilbert told me as we left the building. “I think it’s silly not to listen whenever you get a chance if you’re interested in studying people, because they’re never exactly the same as when you’re with them. People don’t like it when they know about it, of course, but”–he smiled–“I don’t suppose birds and animals like having naturalists spying on them either.”
“Hear much of it?” I asked.
“Oh, enough to know I didn’t miss any of the important part.”
“And what’d you think of it?”
He pursed his lips, wrinkled his forehead, said judicially: “It’s hard to say exactly. Mamma’s good at hiding things sometimes, but she’s never much good at making them up. It’s a funny thing–I suppose you’ve noticed it–the people who lie the most are nearly always the clumsiest at it, and they’re easier to fool with lies than most people, too. You’d think they’d be on the look-out for lies, but they seem to be the very ones that will believe almost anything at all. I suppose you’ve noticed that, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
He said: “What I wanted to tell you: Chris didn’t come home last night. That’s why Mamma’s more upset than usual, and when I got the mail this morning there was a letter for him that I thought might have something in it, so I steamed it open.” He took a letter from his pocket and held it out to me. “You’d better read it and then I’ll seal it again and put it with tomorrow’s mail in case he comes back, though I don’t think he will.”