“That’s all right,” I said. “I’m reporting. I haven’t said anything to anyone else yet, have I?”
“That word ‘yet’ sounds like a threat,” Whitewell said.
I didn’t say anything.
“How much of all this about the amnesia attack is true?” Whitewell asked.
I said, “I somehow had an idea her disappearance might have had to do with a prior marriage.”
“What gave you that idea?”
“She left under her own power. She tried to save her face, and she tried to save Philip’s face. She wasn’t the sort of girl who would have let you buy her off. Looking at it from any angle, the most plausible explanation was that a prior marriage was mixed up in it.”
“So you went to Reno?”
“That’s right. Persons who are suffering from unfortunate marriages and suddenly disappear are quite apt to go to Reno.”
“And you made inquiries at the hospitals, I suppose,” Whitewell said sarcastically.