Burton looked at Wolfe and frowned. He looked at Cabot, and his voice sounded irritated: “Why not you, or anybody? Everybody knows it.”
Cabot smiled. “I said maybe I was overdelicate.”
“I think you were.” Burton turned to Wolfe. “Dora Ritter was a maid in my employ. She is around fifty, extremely homely, disconcertingly competent, and stubborn as a wet boot. Paul Chapin married her in 1931.”
“What did he marry her for?”
“I am as likely to tell you as he is. Chapin is a psychopath.”
“So Mr. Hibbard informed me. What sort of maid was she?”
“What sort?”
“Was she in your office, for instance?”
Burton was frowning. “No. She was my wife’s maid.”
“How long have you known her and how long has Chapin known her?—Wait.” Wolfe wiggled a finger. “I must ask you to bear with me, Dr. Burton. I have just received a shock and am floundering in confusion. I have read all of Paul Chapin’s novels, and so naturally supposed myself to be in possession of a fairly complete understanding of his character, his temperament, his processes of thought and his modes of action. I thought him incapable of following any of the traditional channels leading to matrimony, either emotional or practical. Learning that he has a wife, I am greatly shocked; I am even desperate. I need to have disclosed everything about her that is discoverable.”