"What were you doing there?" she demanded.
Pete soothed out a wrinkle in the rug with the toe of his shoe before he decided to meet her glance.
"It happened this way: I knew where he was going and I was trying to persuade him to stay away. You see, his aunt expects a great deal of me, miss, and I didn't want to do anything less than my duty. I followed him; I argued with him. In fact, we argued all the way to the place where it was being held."
And Pete was telling the literal truth. He and Bill had argued, heatedly. Bill had stubbornly asserted that the Harlem Holocaust would not last four rounds with Jimmy Jenkins, the Tennessee Wildcat, while it had been the contention of Pete that in less time than that the Wildcat would be converted into a human mop for the purpose of removing the resin from the floor of the ring.
"Failing to convert him, I take it that you went inside with him," remarked Mary.
"Exactly. As a matter of loyalty, of course. So long as there seemed to be any chance I would not desert. I am not the kind, miss, who believes in faith without works."
Which was again true, for Pete had translated his faith in the Harlem Holocaust into a wager that would have left him flat had the contentions of Bill reached a confirmation. Unfortunately, the police had canceled the bet.
"And how is it that you were not arrested, as well as Mr. Marshall?"
"There was much confusion. We became separated. I found myself running; I was carried along in the rush of the crowd. Before I knew it I was in the street again. And besides"—Pete made a gesture of appeal "it was necessary for somebody to see about obtaining bail, Miss Norcross."