"In a business way? What do you mean by that?"
I quoted the boss's own words, as nearly as I could recall them.
"So Hatch did make a threat, then? He said that Norcross might as well resign one time as another?"
"Something like that, yes."
"Can you add anything more?"
I could, but I didn't want to. Mr. Van Britt didn't know anything about the Sand Creek Siding hold-up, or I supposed he didn't, and I didn't want to be the first one to tell him. Besides, the whole business was beside the mark. Maisie Ann knew, and I knew, that the boss, strong and unbreakable as he was in other ways, had simply thrown up his hands and quit because somebody had told him that Mrs. Sheila had a husband living. So I just said:
"Nothing that would help out," and after he had talked a little while longer our only millionaire went down-stairs again.
It's funny how things change around for a person just by giving them time to sort of shake down into place and fit themselves together. Nobody came up any more that night; not even the pie-faced nurse; and I had a good chance to lie there looking up at the ceiling pattern of the wall paper and thinking things out to a finish.
After a while the thin edge of the wedge that Mrs. Sheila had been trying to drive into me began to take hold, just a little, in spite of what I knew—or thought I knew. Was it barely possible, after all, that there had been foul play of some sort? There were plenty of mysteries to give the possibility standing-room.
In the first place, something had been done to me by somebody: it was a sure thing that I hadn't crippled and half-killed myself all by my lonesome. Then they had said that the boss stayed up with Mr. Ripley that night until after ten o'clock, and had then gone up to go to bed. That being the case, how could anybody have got to him between that time and the leaving time of the midnight Fast Mail to tell him about Mrs. Sheila?