"Let's go on. Do you understand now what my good friend Jervis Willard told you about Marcia being upset, distraught, desperately waiting last night? — waiting for Bohun to return.’
‘Yes, I think even you understand. If Canifest refused to back this play, it would never be put on at all."
"Now, now," urged Masters, with goading tolerance, "Miss Tait was a very popular actress, I should fancy. Surely any number of producers — “
"That's where you're wrong," the other said, nodding several times. "Not after what she had said of them separately and individually in the newspapers, and also to their faces." The mechanical smile broadened with rather horrible effect. "And what she didn't say, I quoted her as saying. Get it?"
"And this was the news," Masters said slowly, "you say Mr. Bohun was bringing back to her last night?"
"Naturally. She was a very temperamental wench, I can tell you. What must Bohun have thought when he had to come back and explain it was all off? They might get another angel, but. Marcia wasn't too popular. She certainly wasn't popular in this house. It amused me last night, when Miss Katharine Bohun attempted to give her a shove that would send her down a flight of stone stairs..:'
"What the devil's this?"
Bennett felt his heart pounding, and an empty sensation in his chest. He took a step forward, so that Rainger caught his eye.
"What's the matter?" asked Rainger harshly. "Friend of yours? Never mind. That's what she did. Come on, flatfoot: let me get back to the subject. Willard didn't tell you about that little episode, did he? You can forget it. I want to tell you the first step in the case that'll hang John Bohun.. He told you (didn't he?) that he arrived back from London about three A.M. Well, he lied. He got back here at one-thirty, when it was still snowing hard."
"Did he, now?" inquired Masters in a curious tone. "Well. Get this down, Potter. How do you know? Did you see him?"