Prisoner's Base

She used her napkin on lips and fingers, dropped it on the table, pushed back her chair, and arose. "We'll be more comfortable in the other room," she said, and moved. I followed, through to the living room, where it was cooler, with the slanted Venetian blinds admitting only a dim and restful light. The furniture was all wearing light blue slipcovers that looked as if none of them had been sat on yet. After she had got cigarettes from an enameled box and I had lit them, she perched with cushions on an oversized divan, looking less than ever like Widow Rowley, and I took a chair.

"You know," she said, "my mind is a very funny thing. I guess there's no doubt I'm a nut. When you asked me just now about seeing Pris, when I saw her last, I realized for the first time that someone did it."

"Did what? Killed her?"

She nodded. "I didn't hear about it until late yesterday afternoon, when a friend told me on the phone. I never see an evening paper, and I haven't looked at this morning's paper yet, and anyhow I probably wouldn't read about it because I can't stand things like that. I seem to just shut my eyes to things I can't stand. So I knew Pris was dead, found dead in her apartment, strangled, but that was all. When you asked me when I saw her last, it hit me all of a sudden that someone actually did it! She didn't do it herself, did she?"

"Not unless somebody helped out by removing the cord for her afterward. She was strangled with some kind of cord."

Mrs. Jaffee shivered and seemed to shrink into the cushions. "Did that-would that take long?"

"Probably not."

"How long?"

"If the cord was good and tight, only a few seconds until she lost consciousness."

Her hands were fists, and I suspected that the sharp nails were marking her palms. "What could a woman do if a man was strangling her with a cord and had it pulled tight?"

"Nothing except die if he meant business." I got gruff. "You're taking it too hard. If I had started strangling you when you started feeling it a minute ago, it would be all over by now." I reached to mash the cigarette she had dropped into the tray. "Let's go back and try again. When did you see Miss Eads last?"

She took a long deep breath with her lips parted, and her fists loosened some. "I don't think I want to talk about it."

"That's just fine." I was indignant. "You owe me three dollars."

"What? What for?"