The frown deepened but the young man answered promptly enough. "Juanita was my age. Twenty-nine."
Martin Kirk eyed his cigar casually. "Why," he said, "did you want her to walk out on her job; to give up her career?"
Cordell stiffened. "Who says I did?" he snapped.
"Are you denying it?"
"You're damn well right I'm denying it! What is this?"
Kirk was slowly shaking his head almost pityingly. "On at least two occasions friends of you and your wife have heard you say you wished she'd stay home where she belonged and cut out this 'playing around with a mess of test tubes.' Those are your own words, Cordell."
"Every guy," the young man retorted, "who's got a working wife says something like that now and then. It's only natural."
Kirk's jaw hardened. "But every guy's wife doesn't get murdered."
The other looked at him unbelievingly. "Good God," he burst out, "are you saying I killed Juanita because I wanted her to stop working? Of all the—"