“I did not.” Weppler was emphatic too.
“Until that afternoon,” Peggy told Wolfe. “He was at the apartment for lunch, and it happened right after lunch. The others had left, and all of a sudden we were looking at each other, and then he spoke or I did, I don’t know which.” She looked at Weppler imploringly. “I know you think this is embarrassing, Fred, but if he doesn’t know what it was like he won’t understand why you went upstairs to see Alberto.”
“Does he have to?” Weppler demanded.
“Of course he does.” She returned to Wolfe. “I suppose I can’t make you see what it was like. We were completely — well, we were in love, that’s all, and I guess we had been for quite a while without saying it, and that made it all the more — more overwhelming. Fred wanted to see my husband right away, to tell him about it and decide what we could do, and I said all right, so he went upstairs—”
“Upstairs?”
“Yes, it’s a duplex, and upstairs was my husband’s soundproofed studio, where he practiced. So he went—”
“Please, Peggy,” Weppler interrupted her. His eyes went to Wolfe. “You should have it firsthand. I went up to tell Mion that I loved his wife, and she loved me and not him, and to ask him to be civilized about it. Getting a divorce has come to be regarded as fairly civilized, but he didn’t see it that way. He was anything but civilized. He wasn’t violent, but he was damned mean. After some of that I got afraid I might do to him what Gif James had done, and I left. I didn’t want to go back to Mrs. Mion while I was in that state of mind, so I left the studio by the door to the upper hall and took the elevator there.”
He stopped.
“And?” Wolfe prodded him.
“I walked it off. I walked across to the park, and after a while I had calmed down and I phoned Mrs. Mion, and she met me in the park. I told her what Mion’s attitude was, and I asked her to leave him and come with me. She wouldn’t do that.” Weppler paused, and then went on, “There are two complications you ought to have if you’re to have everything.”