“I will tell that,” exploded Bates, “only I won’t tell where I was through the evening, and, you know yourself, that has nothing to do with the case.”
“I know, and, nine times out of ten, it doesn’t matter what the people were doing who refuse to tell. But it might make a difference, and it’s always a bother to be worrying about it.”
“Why worry?”
“Because it may pay. According to Corson’s hunch, two of those chorus chicks don’t want to tell where they were at the time of the crime——”
“Oh, well, they wouldn’t——”
“I know; but it’s an uncertainty. Now, take your aunt. She falsified about hearing your front door close just now. I’ve a full belief that was merely because of a piffling vanity about her deafness,—a thing nobody wants to admit,—but, I wish she hadn’t, for it proves that she is not above prevarication.”
“I don’t think she would fib in any serious matter,” vouchsafed Richard.
“You don’t think so because you don’t want to think so. That can’t cut any ice with me, you know.”
The elevator stopped and the three went down.
In a business-like way, Gibbs rounded up all the girl employees available and put them through a rigid investigation.