“I don’t think so,” mused Corson. “You haven’t seen the paper. It said, not only, ‘Women did this,’ but it said afterward, ‘Get——’ and then there were two letters that looked like b-o——”
“No; I hadn’t heard that! Why, it might have been Ba—and might have meant Babe Russell, after all!”
“No; it’s bo,—but it isn’t a capital B. I studied it closely, and I have it put away. I’ll show it to you.”
“But the capital doesn’t matter. A man writing, in those circumstances, with his last effort of fading strength, might easily use a small letter instead of a capital. Know anybody beginning with Bo?”
“No—why, oh, my goodness! Bob Moore!”
“Well, there’s a chance. You’ve had your eyes on Moore, haven’t you?”
“Only because he was right there. But Mr Vail,—George Vail, of the Vail Bread Company,—stands up for Moore. To be sure, it was only in a general way,—we only talked a few moments,—but he seemed to think Moore is on the detective order,—not of a criminal sort.”
“Why must Moore necessarily be either?”
“Only because he’s a detective story shark. Reads murder yarns all the time, and goes to detective story movies.”
“That proves just nothing at all. But the ‘Get Bo—’ is important. Anybody else around, beginning with Bo,—or Ba? You see, he naturally wouldn’t form the letters perfectly.”