“Why not?” she asked. “Good Lord, if you’d wakened in the middle of the night and found someone leaning over you, and then hands clutching at your throat and—”

“Then you think it’s going to happen again?”

“I don’t know, but I want to stay with Sandra, and I think she’s in danger.”

“What’s she in danger of?”

“I don’t know. I think someone’s trying to kill her.”

“Why her?”

“You see, I was sleeping in her bed.”

“Her husband perhaps?”

“No, I don’t think it’s her husband, but—well, it might have been.”

“Leave her,” I said. “Go get a room by yourself and—”

“No, I couldn’t do that. I’m her friend. I’m going to stand by her. She’s stood by me.”

“Has she?”

“Yes.”

“I gathered from her brother she was rather selfish, a woman who—”

“Well, she isn’t,” she interrupted. “What does her brother know about her? My God, he’s never paid the faintest attention to her. I don’t think he’s written to her once in five years.”

“He seemed to know a lot about her.”

“That’s what makes me think he’s standing in with Morgan. I think Morgan put those ideas in his head. Morgan’s been talking about her, saying the most horrible things, that she’s sex-crazy and has a new man on the string all the time, and all that sort of stuff, things that no man should say about a woman, least of all about his wife.”

“I gather their domestic life hasn’t been particularly happy?”

“Of course it hasn’t. But that’s no reason a man should go around making a lot of false statements about the woman he’s sworn to love and protect—sometimes men make me sick.”

“Let’s go back to the reason for your interest in Mrs. Cool’s marital venture.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I thought you took an unusual interest in it.”

“It was interesting.”

“Doubly interesting to one who is contemplating marriage.”

“Or running away from marriage,” she said, smiling up at me.

“Is that what you’re doing?”

She nodded.

“Want to tell me about it?”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “No, Donald, I’d rather not—not right now, anyway.”

“From Kansas City?” I asked.

“Yes. One of those crazy, insanely jealous men who are always looking for an excuse to get drunk and smash things.”