"You have not always been a cook, I take it." Vance's voice had a slightly different intonation from that which he had used with Sproot.
At first the woman did not answer.
"No, sir," she said finally. "Only since the death of my husband."
"How did you happen to come to the Greenes?"
Again she hesitated. "I had met Mr. Tobias Greene: he knew my husband. When my husband died there wasn't any money. And I remembered Mr. Greene, and I thought"
"I understand." Vance paused, his eyes in space. "You heard nothing of what happened here last night?"
"No, sir. Not until Mr. Chester called up the stairs and said for us to get dressed and come down."
Vance rose and turned to the window overlooking the East River.
"That's all, Frau Mannheim. Be so good as to tell the senior maid—Hemming, isn't she?—to come here."
Without a word the cook left us, and her place was presently taken by a tall, slatternly woman, with a sharp, prudish face and severely combed hair. She wore a black, one-piece dress, and heelless vici-kid shoes; and her severity of mien was emphasized by a pair of thick-lensed spectacles.
"I understand, Hemming," began Vance, reseating himself before the fireplace, "that you heard neither shot last night, and learned of the tragedy only when called by Mr. Greene."
The woman nodded with a jerky, emphatic movement.
