Browning Thursday night. He had told H.M. about this attack, and it had been received with a significant silence which disturbed him still more.
H.M. now pushed the snapshot to the middle of the desk-blotter. Again H.M. remained silent for a time, twiddling his thumbs.
"Humph. Well. Go on about Polly Allen."
"She was last seen alive," pursued Masters, consulting his notebook, "about eight o'clock on the night of July fifteenth."
"Ho! Just what the Browning gal suggested?"
"Yes, sir. Polly Allen had a drink with two girlfriends in the bar at the Queen's Hotel — I gather that's the swankiest place in town — and said she couldn't stay, because she had a 'heavy date.' "
"Was this affair with Arthur Fane pretty well known?"
"No. She seems to have kept it dark. That's natural enough. Her friends say she seemed pretty gay about something ('amused,' was what they said). Out she went about eight o'clock, and hasn't been seen by anybody since.
"She had a bed-sitting-room over a shop in the Promenade. Her things are still there. But, since her rent was paid to the end of the month and she had a habit of mooching off like that without saying boo to anybody, the landlady didn't worry."
Masters's color grew still more florid.