“Why am I here?” she asked Carmine.
“A few things have come up about John Hall, Millie. You never told us that he hit on you in California, gave you expensive jewelry — that he kissed you, if nothing more.”
She went so white that Carmine almost left his chair to go to her, but she recovered quickly, lifted her chin. “It was my business, no one else’s, Captain.”
“In a murder enquiry? When the person who hit on you is the victim? That doesn’t wash, Dr. Hunter, and you know it. Did you have an affair with John Hall?”
“No, I did not,” she said, steady now. “He kissed me once — and not at my invitation. He’d just told me that the pearls were real, and the rhinestone pin was diamond. I’d automatically assumed they were fake, but when he kissed me and told me he was in love with me, he told me their real value. I told him that I couldn’t return his love, and gave them back.” She shivered. “It was one of the most awful days of my life.”
“I understand that you and Mr. Hall were surprised in the act of kissing by your husband, who tore a string of pearls from around your neck. He accused you of infidelity,” Carmine said.
“No, I refuse to believe that in his heart of hearts Jim thought me capable of betrayal,” Millie said huskily. “He was jealous, and that made him angry. But Jim’s not a hot man, his temper cools quickly. So when it did, his ability to think things through returned, and he saw immediately that I was innocent.”
An explanation couched in feminine drama, using words like betrayal and innocence, thought Carmine. In an odd way, they defused what had been an explosive situation, one of the worst days of her life. Had she hated John Hall for exposing her, the perfect wife, to Jim’s ire and disappointment?
“When did this happen in relation to your time in L.A.?” Carmine asked. “I should tell you that we know about your husband’s sinus operation and the loan from John Hall to finance it, and that it took place in June of 1959.”
“We left California in August of 1960,” Millie said slowly, “and John hit on me about six months before that — around the end of February of 1960, it would have been.”
Ah! thought Carmine, astounded. He says it happened the day before they left for Chicago, she says it was six months earlier. It’s Hunter lying, not his wife — but why?
“So your last six months in L.A. weren’t spent in company with John Hall?”
Now she look astounded. “Things went on the same after as before,” she said. “Why wouldn’t they? It was just a temporary aberration, Captain. John apologized to Jim, and that was the end of it.” Her brow creased. “Infatuation, that’s all it was.”
“And how did you fit after the incident?”
“Me? I was just relieved it all blew over. I wasn’t nearly as vital to John as his bond with Jim was.” Her hands moved, as if they could convey what words couldn’t. “You see, John was one of those people who worship at the feet of genius, and every time John saw Jim, the genius hit him between the eyes. There was nothing homosexual in their relationship, but it was tight — very tight. My own theory was that John could compete with Jim in one way only — his attraction for women — and he set out to see if he could steal something from a genius, if only a wife.”
“You make it sound as if a wife is unimportant to a genius.”
“No, no! I don’t mean I’m unimportant to Jim! But the wife is separate from the genius — at least, that was what John Hall thought. He assumed that the space I occupied in Jim’s life was all to do with making sure he wore more clothes than a fig leaf, ate regular meals, put my feminine body next to him in a bed. California saw the worst period of Jim’s ill health, so my importance to Jim as a colleague in his work wasn’t on its usual full display. He lost sight of the fact that I’m a biochemist too, and that that allows me to serve a genius in ways wives can’t. Until we came to Chubb, I was Jim’s chief technician, even though I was never on his books. These days he has so many acolytes he doesn’t need me the way he used to.” She smiled. “However, I sometimes appear after eleven of a night, when he’s all alone, and work as his best technician. No one is my equal.”
She stopped, her eyes suddenly full of tears. “John never picked up on that, and once Jim cooled down, he understood what had actually happened — the stealing from a genius.”
“But Jim forgave him.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Did he forgive you, Millie?”