Free In the Teeth of Adversity by Marian Babson

Adele.”
    â€œHow do you do?” she said perfunctorily. “Arrest that man!”
    Not surprisingly, the inspector goggled. She was pointing at her husband.
    â€œI was afraid she was still upset,” Endicott said, to no one in particular.
    â€œWhy?” Inspector Rennolds asked, showing that practical streak of his again.
    â€œBecause he killed Tyler Meredith.”
    â€œDid you see him do it?” It occurred to me that the inspector had encountered redheads before.
    â€œNo, of course not. I’ve been out of town.”
    â€œDid he confess to you that he’d done it?”
    â€œNo!” she stamped her foot impatiently. “Why are you wasting time with all these silly questions? Why don’t you arrest him? He had everything – motive, means, and opportunity. What more do you want?”
    â€œJuries like proof,” the inspector said. He glanced at Endicott Zayle with some sympathy. “You can go back to your patients now. They’ll be wondering what’s happened to you.”
    â€œYes, but Adele –”
    â€œShe’ll be all right. We’re just going to have a little discussion.” He looked over at Gerry and me. “You can go, too, but don’t go far. I’ll want to talk to you again later.”
    â€œWe’ll be downstairs in the waiting room,” I said. As we left the room, I heard Adele begin to explain that she and Tyler Meredith were engaged, that she had intended to divorce her husband and marry Tyler. I caught the slightly glazed expression on Inspector Rennolds’s face just before the door closed behind us. He looked like a man who had heard it all before.
    Everyone in the waiting room looked up as we entered, then looked away again, dissatisfied. Some of them had been waiting an inordinately long time. Even the appearance of the receptionist to say “You’re next” would have been welcome.
    â€œYou were here yesterday!” Until the Hon. Edytha Cale-Cunningham spoke to me suddenly, I hadn’t recognized her. Now I was shocked. Yesterday she had just appeared nervous and highly strung; today she was haggard and hagridden. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and a protective layer of flesh had disappeared between bones and skin, leaving her gaunt.
    â€œHave you heard what happened?” She came over to me, clutching my arm urgently with a hand that was little more than a claw. “Do you know ?”
    I didn’t feel like admitting how much I did know – especially to her. “I’ve ... er ... heard that Endicott Zayle ... lost his ... partner,” I evaded.
    â€œI shall never believe it was suicide!” The claw tightened on my arm. “Never!”
    I met Gerry’s look and we tacitly agreed that we wanted to get the hell out of here. The question was how to pry myself loose before those tourniquet fingers cut off my circulation.
    â€œYou don’t believe it” – the shadowed eyes gazed up at me beseechingly – “do you?”
    â€œI hardly knew the man,” I said quickly. “I was always one of Zayle’s patients.” It had been a great mistake to come down here. We should have gone upstairs and joined Sir Malcolm – at least I had learned how to cope with him adequately. A couple of hours lurching down Memory Lane after him would have been child’s play compared to this.
    â€œ I knew him,” she said. “That’s why I know he would never have committed suicide. I knew him very well. We” – her voice lowered confidentially – “we were engaged. We were going to be married.”
    That threw me. “Congratulations,” I said, then realized that wasn’t the right thing to say. “I mean – I’m sorry,” I said hastily, but that didn’t sound right, either. I looked to Gerry for help.
    He was carefully looking in another direction. Which meant it had thrown him,