“I have a horrible feeling that all the stolen things are going to be found on me,” supplemented Miss Gregg. “They would be, in a nightmare, you know. And if this isn’t a nightmare I don’t know what nightmare is. But search if you like. The sooner it’s over the sooner we’ll wake up.”
“I speak for the good wife as well as for myself,” boomed Joshua Q. Mosely, “when I say we shall do all in our power to uphold the law. We are willing to be searched.”
He gazed about him with the rarefied air of one who has just consented to part with life in the holy cause of duty.
“I am not going to be searched.”
It was Thaxton Vail who said it. Every one turned with something akin to a jump and stared marvelingly at him.
“I am not going to be searched,” he repeated, coming forward into the strong glare of lamplight beside the table where sat the two officials. “And I am not going to permit my guests to be searched. When I say ‘my guests,’ I do not refer to Mr. and Mrs. Mosely, but to the friends whom I have known all my life. They are under my roof. They have suffered by being under my roof. Neither they nor myself shall be humiliated any further. I’ve listened patiently to this comic opera interrogation, and I have answered all questions put to me in the course of it. But I’m not going to submit to the tom-foolery of a search. Please understand that clearly, Chief.”
He sat down again. There was a confused rustle throughout the room. Joshua Q. Mosely glared at him with fearsome suspicion. Quimby cleared his throat, frowning. But before either could speak Osmun Creede had come forward out of the shadows to the area of light by the table.
“Chief,” he said, his rasping voice cutting the room’s looser sounds like a rusty file, “I’m the only person here who can’t possibly be connected with the thefts. I didn’t get here till five minutes ago, and I can prove by a dozen people that I was dining at the Country Club at the time the things were stolen. So I can speak disinterestedly.”
“What’s the sense of your speaking at all?” grumbled Chase. “It’s no business of yours.”
Unheeding, Osmun proceeded: