The tone more than the words caused Miss Prall to drop the subject, and Gibbs proceeded.
“Now, you see, Mr. Bates, we can’t accept your aunt’s testimony that you didn’t leave your room last night.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” retorted Richard; “nor do I need it. I tell you I was in bed by or before midnight, and did not leave my bed until I was summoned by Bob Moore after the tragedy had occurred. Now, unless you have some definite and sufficient reason to suspect me of falsehood, I have no need to bring any proof of my assertion.”
“That’s so, Gibbs,” said Corson, meditatively. “There’s no reason, I know of, to inquire into Mr Bates’ doings.”
“There’s reason to inquire into the doings of everybody who had the slightest connection with this matter,” said Gibbs severely. “But unless there’s a doubt, we needn’t yet ask for proof of their words.”
He glared at Miss Prall, with the evident implication that he might feel a doubt of her word.
However, when she and Miss Gurney stated that they had retired at about eleven and had not left their rooms until called up by Richard to hear the tragic news, no comment was made by Gibbs and Corson merely looked at them abstractedly with the air of a preoccupied owl.
“Then,” resumed Corson, “now that we’ve placed your whereabouts and occupations, will you state, any or all of you, what opinion you hold as to the identity of the women who are responsible for the death of Sir Herbert Binney?”
“Those chorus girls,” said Miss Letitia, promptly. “I always told him he’d get into a moil with them, and they’d fleece him. They are a smart lot, and Sir Herbert, though a shrewd business man, was putty in the hands of a clever or designing woman!”
“But these girls are mere children—”