"Then I'll go to the police or the F.B.I.—they're supposed to catch kidnappers, aren't they?—and tell them what I know."
I stood up. This would be easier than I had expected.
"Okay, Virginia," I said, "go right ahead. There's the telephone. You can use it to call the Secret Service for all I care. See what luck you have with your story, when my wife is here to testify that I'm Winnie Tompkins."
Her face paled and her eyes narrowed angrily. "Jimmie too?" she asked. "Then you're both in it!"
"We're both in what?"
The door opened and Germaine Tompkins stood in the entrance.
Virginia Rutherford looked trapped and she instinctively pulled her mink back over her shoulders.
"Nothing, Jimmie," she said at last. "I was foolish enough to hope that if I came back and had a talk alone with Winnie, we could pick up where we left off. He's been acting so strangely that he doesn't seem like himself at all. And so are you. That's what I meant by saying that you were both in it."
"Virginia," my wife said firmly, "my husband told you to stay out of this house—and it's my home, too—and now I find you here. Please go or I'll call the police."
The two women exchanged appraising glances which suggested that they were both thoroughly enjoying the touch of melodrama that had come into their well-fed lives.