"He did hint that my husband might be interested in them."
"Are you on good terms with your husband, Mrs. North?"
She gave an embarrassed little laugh. "Yes, of course. Perfectly."
"He had no cause to suspect you of any form of intimacy with Mr. Fletcher?"
"No. Oh no! I have always had my own friends, and my husband never interfered."
"He was not, then, jealous of your friendships with other men?"
"How old-fashioned of you, Superintendent! Of course not.
"That implies great confidence in you, Mrs. North." "Well, naturally… !"
"Yet in spite of this perfect understanding which you tell me existed between you, you were ready to steal your IOUs from Mr. Fletcher rather than allow the knowledge of your gambling debts to come to your husband's ears?"
She took a moment or two to answer, but replied at length quite composedly: "My husband very much dislikes gambling. I have always been rather extravagant, and I shrank from telling him about those debts."