Angry or vindictive women might accompany him to the lobby of his own hotel, pleading or threatening in their own interests and then, in their final despair at gaining their point, stab him and run away.
Which, the detectives concluded, was just what had happened, and the thing now, was to find the women.
In default of any other way to look, they were still investigating the women employed in The Campanile.
But they had narrowed their search down to a few of those. Principally of interest was Julie Baxter, the telephone girl,—but more for the reason of her relations with Moore, than because of her own admissions.
A persistent quizzing of Moore had proved to the detectives’ satisfaction that he did not know where Julie was the night of the murder, and that he was himself anxiously worried at her refusal to tell.
For the girl would not tell even her fiancé where she had been. She persisted in her story that she had been up to no harm but she was determined to keep her secret. This, in connection with her strong will and blunt manner, convinced the detectives that, though she need not have been criminally implicated, she, at least, knew definite and indicative facts about the murder.
Moore said he was in a quandary. Full of detective interest, he longed to work on the case, and felt sure he could be of use to the police, but the attitude of Julie deterred him.
“You see, she’s my girl,” he said frankly to Corson. “And she does act queer! I don’t understand her, but I can’t dig into this thing and maybe run up against something she doesn’t want me to!”
“You have faith in her own innocence, then?”
“Oh, yes,—that is, she wouldn’t kill a man! And yet,—who can say that? In a fit of anger a woman would do anything,—more especially, if she wasn’t alone.”