“Very well, then, my dear,” she said--and so help me, Sarge, she didn’t speak. She hissed! “You choose to abandon me, my aid, my patronage, my friends. _But if certain people were to learn about your background--!_” And like a witch’s broom, she swept toward the door. “A moment, please,” Madame Outre said, so coolly the temperature seemed to drop. The Duchess halted, and half turned. Quietly, her shoulders held stiff and proud, Madame Outre came out from behind the counter. “We have known each other for years,” she said. “Our long association makes it fitting that we part, if not as friends, then assuredly not as enemies. As the final act in our relationship I must beg you to accept from me a small but adequate gift. It will be mailed to you tonight.” Challenged to keep her temper, the Duchess smiled back. But her wide gray eyes were cold with hate. “As you wish, my dear,” she said. “As you wish.” Satisfied, Sarge? Now look, I’m telling you. As soon as the Duchess took a powder, Madame Outre went to her laboratory, and was busy for about half an hour. Then she handed me a four-ounce jar of greenish bath salts--probably the same bottle you found by the Duchess’s bath tub. So I wrapped it carefully, weighed it, stamped it and on my way home deposited it in the package mailbox on the corner. Next morning--that was Saturday, about ten days ago--I found Madame’s check for two weeks’ pay in the mail. It didn’t sound kosher, so I rushed over to the store--which she’s failed to open, then or since. Monday I cashed the check. You traced me through her bank, eh? No, of course I didn’t go to the police! Madame wanted to do a quiet fadeout, and that’s her business. The trouble with this country is--too many amateur snoops are on the warpath. So that’s all there is, Sarge. And until you mentioned it, I never made any mental connection between Madame’s disappearance and the Duchess’s vanishing act. How could I, when you only told me a half hour ago? Come again. You say there’s dirty work at the crossroads? Sure, I’ll buy. I’m morally certain nobody did Madame Outre in. She simply up and took off. As for the Duchess, anything that old battleax got she deserved--provided there’s a _corpus delicti_, a body. But there isn’t. You said so yourself. So how in hell-- _What?_ You _did_ find something? A three-carat diamond wedding ring, which the Duke insists she never removed from her finger--not even when she bathed? You found it in the bathroom, eh? Okay. So maybe, just this once, she took it off before she toweled herself, or whatever rich dames do when they want to rub clean. So she left it on the washstand. Oh--she didn’t? You mean, there was evidence she’d taken a bath, had finished, pulled the plug, let out the water, and then stood up to dry herself?