“Is that lucrative?”
“No. He says he isn’t fitted for a commercial society. I can’t stand him, and I don’t understand how Ann can. They live in an apartment on Park Avenue, and she pays the rent, and as far as I know she pays everything. She must.”
“Well.” Wolfe sighed. “So that’s the job. While Mr. Aubry’s motive was admittedly more powerful than theirs, since he stood to lose not only his fortune but also his wife, they were by no means immune to temptation. How much have you been associating with them the past two years?”
“Not much. With Aunt Margaret and Dick almost not at all. I used to see Ann fairly often, but very little since she married Norman Horne.”
“When was that marriage?”
“Two years ago. Soon after the estate was distributed.” She stopped, and then decided to go on. “That was one of Ann’s unpredictable somersaults. She was engaged to Jim Beebe — announced publicly, and the date set — and then, without even bothering to break it off, she married Norman Horne.”
“Was Mr. Horne a friend of your husband’s?”
“No, they never met. Ann found Norman — I don’t know where. They wouldn’t have been friends even if they had met, because Sidney wouldn’t have liked him. There weren’t many people Sidney did like.”
“Did he like his relatives?”
“No — if you want facts. He didn’t. He saw very little of them.”