"I just started."
"Witchcraft," he murmured, his head angled, reading the title at the top of the pages.
"What's doin'?" Chris asked him.
"Yes, I'm sorry. You're busy. You're busy. I'll finish. As I said, I wouldn't bother you, except..."
"Except what?"
He looked suddenly grave and clasped his hands on the table. "Well, Mr. Dennings, Mrs.
MacNeil..."
"Well..."
"Darn it," snapped Sharon with irritation as she ripped out a letter from the platen of the typewriter. She balled it up and tossed it at a wastepaper basket near Kinderman. "Oh, I'm sorry," she apologized as she saw that her outburst had interrupted them.
Chris and Kinderman were staring.
"You're Miss Fenster?" Kinderman asked her.
"Spencer," said Sharon, pulling back her chair in order to rise and retrieve the letter.
"Never mind, never mind," said Kinderman as he reached to the floor near his foot and picked up the crumpled page.
"Thanks," said Sharon.
"Nothing. Excuse me--- you're the secretary?"
"Sharon, this is..."
"Kinderman," the detective reminded her. "William Kinderman."
"Right. This is Sharon Spencer."
"A pleasure," Kinderman told the blonde, who now folded her arms on the typewriter,, eyeing him curiously. "Perhaps you can help," he added. "On the night of Mr. Dennings' demise, you went out to a drugstore and left him alone in the house, correct?"
"Well, no; Regan was here."
"That's my daughter," Chris clarified.
Kinderman continued to question Sharon. "He came to see Mrs. MacNeil?"
"Yes, that's right"
"He expected her shortly?"
"Well, I told him I expected her back pretty soon."
"Very good. And you left at what time? You remember?"
"Let's see. I was watching the news, so I guess--- oh, no, wait--- yes, that's right. I remember being bothered because the pharmacist said the delivery boy had gone home. I remember I said,
'Oh, come on, now,' or something about its only being six-thirty. Then Burke came along just ten, maybe twenty minutes after that."
"So a median," concluded the detective, "would have put him here at six-forty-five." "And so what's this all about?" asked Chris, the nebulous tension in her mounting.
"Well, it raises a question, Mrs. MacNeil," wheezed Kinderman, turning his head to gaze at her. "To arrive in the house at say quarter to seven and leave only twenty minutes later..."
"Oh, well, that was Burke," said Chris "Just like him."
"Was it also like Mr. Dennings," asked Kinderman; "to frequent the bars on M. Street?" "No."
"No, No, I thought not. I made a little check. And was it also not his custom to travel by taxi?
He wouldn't call a cab from the house when he left?"
"Yes, he would."
"Then one wonders--- not so?--- how he came to be walking on the platform at the top of the steps. And one wonders why taxicab companies do not show a record of calls from this house on that night," added Kinderman, "except for the one that picked up your Miss Spencer here at precisely six-forty-seven."
"I don't know," answered Chris, her voice drained of color... and waiting...
"You knew all along!" gasped Sharon at Kinderman, perplexed.
"Yes, forgive me," the detective told her. "However, the matter has now grown serious."
Chris breathed shallowly, fixing the detective with a steady gaze. "In what way?" she asked.
