His voice shook as he replied, “I say, Gibbs, I don’t know what I want! I’m knocked galley-west. I don’t believe for the thousandth part of a second that either Miss Prall or Mrs Everett have one speck of knowledge of the deed, but you know the very mention of their names would be like fire to tow in the newspaper reports.”
“Of course it would. Yet what can we do? However much I keep my investigations quiet, there’s a gang of reporters nosing about everywhere. They’ve likely got hold of Julie already——”
“She won’t tell anything.”
“She won’t mean to,—but they’ll frighten or trap her into it. There’s nothing so dangerous as a woman with a secret of her own to guard. She’ll babble of everything else.”
“What do you advise?” Bates was clearly at the end of his rope. He was beseeching of manner and despairing of tone.
“Straightforwardness, first of all. I’m going at once, either to Miss Prall or to Mrs Everett, and make them come across with something definite. If they don’t know anything,—I’ll find that out, at least.”
“Go first to my aunt, then. I’ll go with you,—come along. Get all you can out of her, I’m not in the least afraid!”
The two men went up to the Prall apartment and Bates opened the door with his own key.
“Here’s Mr Detective, Aunt Letty,” he said, trying to speak lightly; “he wants a little chatter with you.”
Miss Prall looked up from her book.