“What’s your information?” she said. “You’d better talk, you little rat, or I’ll shoot you in the leg and tell the night clerk you broke in here.”
Sweeting nearly fainted with fright.
“Take care,” he quavered. “That gun might go off. Please put it down. I’ll be only too glad to tell you what I know.”
“Talk!” Her voice cracked like a whiplash. “What do you know about my brother?”
“Lieutenant Adams came to see me tonight,” Sweeting said, trying to shrink even further back in the chair as she came closer, holding the gun not more than a foot from his flinching eyes. “He’s sure Johnny killed Fay Carson. I told him he was wrong. I told him Maurice Yarde probably killed her.”
Gilda stiffened.
“Why did you tell him that?”
“Yarde saw Fay Carson the night before last. They quarrelled. I heard him tell her he would cut her throat.”
“You told Adams that?”
“Yes. I didn’t want Johnny to get into trouble. I’m an old friend of his. I’m sure he wouldn’t hurt Fay. I like to look after my friends.”