"Then I'll go to the police or the F.B.I.--they're supposed to catch kidnappers, aren't they?--and tell them what I know."
I stood up. This would be easier than I had expected.
"Okay, Virginia," I said, "go right ahead. There's the telephone. You can use it to call the Secret Service for all I care. See what luck you have with your story, when my wife is here to testify that I'm Winnie Tompkins."
Her face paled and her eyes narrowed angrily. "Jimmie too?" she asked. "Then you're both in it!"
The door opened and Germaine Tompkins stood in the entrance.
Virginia Rutherford looked trapped and she instinctively pulled her mink back over her shoulders.
"Nothing, Jimmie," she said at last. "I was foolish enough to hope that if I came back and had a talk alone with Winnie, we could pick up where we left off. He's been acting so strangely that he doesn't seem like himself at all. And so are you. That's what I meant by saying that you were both in it."
"Virginia," my wife said firmly, "my husband told you to stay out of this house--and it's my home, too--and now I find you here. Please go or I'll call the police."
The two women exchanged appraising glances which suggested that they were both thoroughly enjoying the touch of melodrama that had come into their well-fed lives.
"No, it's my fault for letting her in," I said. "She sent in word by Mary--"
"--that she would like to see me. I agreed to do so, so you can't blame her. We talked things over and decided that it's all off--a few moments of madness, but that's all, and not worth wrecking two marriages for. Isn't that so, Mrs. Rutherford?"
Virginia shook her head. "No, Winnie, it is not so. Jimmie, I came here with that gun. It wasn't loaded but the next time it will be. I made Myrtle or whatever her name is show me in and I told her I would shoot Winnie if she gave the alarm. Then I told him what I know about him."
"That he is not Winnie at all," Virginia declared. "That he is an imposter, that he and perhaps you had done away with poor old Winnie. I told him that I wouldn't tell his secret if he paid me to keep silent. And he told me to call the police."
My wife went over to her and took her hand. "Poor, darling Virginia," she murmured, "why don't you go away and have a good rest? You've got yourself all worked up for a nervous breakdown. Of course it's Winnie. I'm married to him and I ought to know my own husband, shouldn't I? You've simply got run down and all, with rationing and war-work. Why don't you let Jerry send you for a few weeks to the Hartford Sanctuary for psychoanalysis and a good rest?"