"I wouldn't talk now, if I were you," said Hitchin, kindly enough. "I'm devoting myself to Fry. Well, Fry?"
As yet Anthony had not found the proper line of speech.
"The boy, a stranger, comes here at midnight," Hitchin purred relentlessly. "There is a heavy fall at two. There is weeping before seven, the weeping of a strange woman. There are the boy's clothes—the rest of them are downstairs. So, once more—where is David Prentiss?"
He waited, and Anthony Fry drew a long breath. All his life he had been painfully addicted to the truth; it was part of his cherished and spotless reputation. All his life he had shunned fiction, and was therefore ignorant of plot technique. So he did fairly well in smiling sourly and saying, calmly enough:
"So far as I know, David is about starting for his work, Hitchin. The thing had slipped my mind altogether, but I remember now that the boy took a suit—a blue suit—for himself and changed into it while here. That outfit was decidedly shabby. After that he left, and as to the French girl, you may theorize and be hanged, for she happens to be none of your infernal business, and she has no connection with David."
"None, eh?"
"None whatever!"
Mr. Hitchin grinned without humor and examined the trousers in silence, thinking, and later humming to himself. He smoothed them out and then folded them carefully, finally replacing them in his brief case. After that he looked at Anthony.
"If I were you, Fry, I should tell the truth, and let me help you. You know, and I know, that the boy never left this apartment. Well?"
"Well?" snapped Anthony.