He hesitated. Then, a tinge of evasion in his unhappy voice, he replied:
“Every one of us was robbed.... Except one.”
She frowned, perplexed.
“What’s that got to do with it?” she asked. “Thax was the only one of us who wasn’t robbed. That doesn’t answer my question at all.”
He said nothing.
“Clive Creede!” she burst forth, incredulously. “Do you mean to say you are—are—imbecile enough to believe such a thing of Thax? Why, I— Clive!”
There was a world of amazed contempt in her young voice. The man winced. Yet he held his ground doggedly.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” he said. “I know, as well as you do, that Thax didn’t do it through dishonesty or because he needed the money. He has more cash now than he can spend. But—”
“Then why—”
“Either he did it as a mammoth practical joke or else—”