“I’m not sure that he does, Bauer,” the captain said. “I want the truth, Mr. Conway — we won’t hold it against you that you haven’t told us before — didn’t you know that your wife had been seeing a good deal of Taylor recently?”
“I don’t believe it!” This is another of Bauer’s fantastic theories, Conway thought.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it’s true,” Ramsden said. “Taylor is a salesman for a machine-tool concern. He has quite a large territory to cover in Southern California, and he’s out of town four or five days a week. That’s one reason it’s taken us so long to find him. But on the days — and nights — he was in town, your wife spent a great deal of time with him. They were very good friends, Mr. Conway, if you know what I mean. He’s admitted it.”
Conway felt as if he had been hit in the pit of the stomach. He knew that he must think clearly, logically, that he must determine how this incredible revelation might affect him. But his brain at the moment was beyond discipline; it whirled in a chaos of confusion. How much had Taylor told them? How much did Taylor know? What did Taylor know that he himself did not? One fact emerged clearly: his whole plan had been based on the fact that he and Helen were an island alone in this community; that they had no intimates, no confidantes, who could give the lie to his version of their relationship. Now, suddenly, there had appeared someone who had been much closer to Helen than himself.
The shock of the disclosure was so great that it did not occur to Conway that he should act like a trusting husband who has just learned of his wife’s perfidy. But the emotions his face revealed must have seemed valid enough to the two detectives; they sat in silence as he struggled to assay the full meaning of the horrifying discovery. It was Bauer who finally spoke.
“I guess maybe he really didn’t know,” he said to Ramsden. “I don’t see how a guy could help knowing if a thing like that was going on, but it looks like maybe he didn’t.”
“You didn’t know she was seeing Taylor at all?” Ramsden asked.
“I–I still can’t believe it,” Conway said, and realized that the fear and confusion in his mind gave his voice a genuinely shaken quality. “What did Taylor say?”
“Had you and your wife discussed a divorce?”
Here was the trap, he thought. What had Taylor told them? But it didn’t matter — he had to stick by what he had told Bauer. “No — of course not,” he said.