Inspector Whipple said crisply, “First, Miss Lang, I’ve a few questions. Please sit down.”
She sat down stiffly, facing Whipple, ignoring the others.
It had been agreed that Whipple would ask the questions because, as a police officer, he could do so with more authority. Effie had given him a list.
“What,” Whipple asked, “did Effie Foster give Caroline Marsh for a birthday present five years ago?”
“I don’t remember.”
Effie smiled. “You see?” she challenged.
“Effie,” the accused woman retorted, “won a bridge prize at my house six years ago. What was it?” Effie gaped. “I’ve forgotten,” she admitted.
“You see?” The woman’s smile mocked her. “That, I suppose, proves she isn’t Effie Foster. Go on, Inspector.”
Whipple read from his list: “Roger Marsh has an aunt and uncle. What are their names, where do they live and what is their telephone number?”
“Uncle Carey and Aunt Harriet,” the prisoner answered promptly, “live in Edgeton. I’ve forgotten their phone number.”
“Roger and Caroline Marsh were in an amateur play one time. What was the play and what parts did they take?”
“It was William Tell. Roger was William Tell and I was his son, with an apple on my head. Ask me something hard, Inspector.”
“Who was the chairman of the Community Chest committee Caroline Marsh once served on?”
“I can’t remember.”
Her voice, Roger thought, was a little like Caroline’s but definitely bolder. Caroline had been a timid quiet girl. This woman was a fighter.
“When Dr. Cawfield was on vacation, who was the doctor who substituted for him?”
“The name slips my mind, Inspector. Perhaps if I think awhile, I’ll remember.”
Caroline, Roger was sure, would remember instantly. Young and good-looking Dr. Joyce had in fact treated that burn on the third knuckle of Caroline’s hand. This woman, he saw, had a burn scar in the same place. She must have inflicted it deliberately.
“Caroline and Roger Marsh had one serious quarrel curing the first year of their married life. What caused it?”
“As if I could forget!” The woman smiled bitterly. “Roger had a too beautiful secretary named Lucile Dutton. I thought he admired her more than he should. One day he went to Annapolis for a trial. He forgot his briefcase. Lucile carried it to him and he took her to lunch. People saw them and told me. I shouldn’t have been jealous but I was. And one word led to another.”
Whipple looked at Roger and Roger, with a grimace, nodded. “I suppose it was all in Caroline’s diary,” he murmured.
“Did Roger ever take Caroline to Honolulu?”
“Yes.”
“What hotel did they stop at?”
“I can’t remember. It’s been eight years.”
“What was the occasion?”
“Our honeymoon.”
“How long had Roger been married when he went into the army?”
“About a year.”
“That was seven years ago. How many times did Caroline see him after that?”
“Not once — until now. Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t know me.”
“Who introduced Roger to Caroline?”
“No one. He went into a New York store to buy a bottle of perfume. I was the clerk who sold it to him. That’s how we met.”
All that, Roger kept assuring himself, could have been in Caroline’s diary. Or Caroline could have confided it during Evelyn’s visit. Undoubtedly this was Evelyn Blythe.
There were many more questions. To about half of them the woman answered frankly, “I can’t remember.” But certainly she had briefed herself on Caroline’s past with a studied thoroughness. The romantic incidents in it were the ones she knew best. The very ones which Caroline, always a romanticist, would have been most likely to confide.
In the end Whipple turned to Roger. “You still say this woman isn’t your wife?”
“I do,” Roger said.
Dr. Cawfield echoed him emphatically. “Caroline Marsh died four years ago.”
Whipple pressed a button and the police matron came in. “We’re finished,” he said.
The prisoner followed Matron Kelly to an exit. Then she turned defiantly to Roger Marsh. “You’ve asked me a great many questions, Roger. Now let me ask you one. Did you ever read Matthew 19:5?”
Without waiting for a response she disappeared with the matron.
“The devil,” Dr. Cawfield derided, “can cite Scripture for his purpose. Let’s get out of here.”
As they went out Whipple said, “Pretty sharp, wasn’t she? Well, now that that’s over, the Detroit police will extradite her for trial in Michigan. I’ll be glad to get rid of her. Where to now, Mr. Marsh?”
“To a hotel,” Roger said, “for a night’s sleep. Then to Baltimore.”
With Effie Foster and the doctor he taxied to a hotel. In his room there Roger saw a Gideon Bible on the dresser. He picked it up and turned to Matthew 19:5.
The verse read: “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh.”
When Roger’s chartered plane glided to a landing at the Baltimore airport, he saw that the gateway was swarming with reporters.
“And look, Roger,” Effie exclaimed, “isn’t that your Uncle Carey and Aunt Harriet?”
“It’s the whole town,” Roger groaned. “Blast them! Why can’t they leave us alone?”
Roger fought fiercely through people who waylaid them in the gateway, refusing to answer the questions hurled at him by newsmen. He let Effie and Dr. Cawfield deal with them. He himself broke away, flanked by his uncle and aunt. Reporters, Uncle Carey was complaining, had awakened him at five o’clock this morning.
“And what,” he demanded furiously, “are you going to do about it?” He was short and bald. His wife, Harriet, was tall and gray.
“Nothing,” Roger said.
“You mean you’ll let them drag the name of Marsh through—”
“Oh, fiddlesticks!” Aunt Harriet broke in. “That’s all I’ve heard for forty years. The proud unsullied name of Marsh! For a century you’ve kept it out of headlines. And now you’re in them up to your necks.” Her eyes glittered.
“Harriet,” Uncle Carey rebuked bleakly, “must you be flippant at a time like this? Don’t you realize what it means? We’re disgraced, all of us. Now look, Roger, I’ve thought it over. We’ll all make a tour of South America till this horrible mess is over. That way they can’t drag us in at the trial.”
“You can run if you want to,” Roger said. “I shan’t.”
Just as they reached Uncle Carey’s car, Leslie Paxton, Roger’s law partner, caught up with them. “Roger,” he demanded, “why didn’t you tell me about this? Think of the firm! Have you seen the latest editions?” He had a packet of them under his arm.
Uncle Carey herded them into his sedan and took the wheel himself.
“No,” Roger said. “What about them?”
As the car sped away, Uncle Carey trying desperately to elude reporters, Leslie Paxton gave Roger the latest journalistic flashes.
“They’ve traced the background of Jake Lang, alias Jake Blythe. He was a cardsharp who died at Joliet. He came originally from Arizona. A record in an old mine hospital proves that twin girls were born to Jake’s wife about thirty years ago. The twins were named Evelyn and Caroline. So that much of it can’t be denied.”
“I’ve already conceded that much,” Roger told him. “Eva Lang is my sister-in-law. We have to start from there.”
“They’ve taken her to Detroit,” Paxton said, “for trial. Don’t you see what you’re up against? You can’t ignore it.”