“Why he was a regular feller, you know. He took the chorus girls,—or some of their sort,—out to dinners and all that, and, here in the house, he jollied the elevator girls and the telephone and news-stand Janes,—and yet he detested girls’ service. Many a time he’d blow out to the manager about how he’d ought to fire all the girls and put back men or boys,—like we had before the war.”
“Your story doesn’t hang together. Binney seemed to adore and hate the girls, both.”
“That’s just it, he did. He’d storm and rail at Daisy,—she’s on his elevator, and then he’d turn around and chuck her under the chin, and like as not bring her home a big box of chocolates.”
“Oh, well, I’ve heard of men like that before.”
“But not so much so. I don’t believe anybody ever went for the girls rough-shod as bad as he did. He called them down for the least thing,—and then, sometimes he’d make it up to them and sometimes he wouldn’t.”
“And the chorus ladies? But I suppose you don’t know much about them.”
“Don’t I? Well, I guess I do! Why, Mr Binney—Sir Binney, I mean,—he used to tell me the tallest yarns I ever heard, about his little suppers,—as he called ’em. He’d come ‘long about two G. M. pretty mellow, and in an expansive mood, and he’d pour out his heart to old Bob,—meaning me. Yes, sir, I know a thing or two about Binney’s lady friends, and there’s a few of them that wouldn’t mind knifing him a bit,—if they were sure they wouldn’t be found out. And,—if you ask me, that’s just what happened.”
“H’m; you mean they followed him home, and slipped in after him——”
“Yep.”
“But how did they know they’d find the coast clear,—that you’d so very conveniently be up in the elevator, and would stay up there such an unusually long time? You’d better shut up, Moore. Everything you say gets you deeper in the net. If your chorus girl theory is the right dope, you were in on it, too. Otherwise it couldn’t have been worked!”