Markham, the night clerk, said, “You know he’s the man, Esther. What are you trying to do? Why should you protect him? What’s he to you?”
“A total stranger,” she said. “I never saw him before in my life, and neither did you.”
The detective who had charge of me said, “Bill, take them out to Ashbury’s place. We’ll go in a cab. I want to keep this girl and Lam apart, and you’d better keep her from talking to that night clerk.”
“Let her talk her head off,” the other detective said, “She’s just building up a case against herself.”
Esther said to the night clerk, “If you’d had a good look at him, Walter, you’d know he isn’t the same one. You didn’t see him as well as I did. You—”
“You heard what I said,” the detective remarked.
“Well, what the hell am I going to do? Am I—”
The detective who had me grabbed Markham by the arm. “You come along with us,” he said.
Markham came walking along, his pants flapping around his ankles where the cuffs had been rolled up.
We went in a taxi. The others followed in the police car, clearing the way for the cab with the siren. I never did know how Bertha got there, but she managed to keep right along with the procession. When we pulled up in front of Ashbury’s house and got out, the detective looked at her, and said, “You again. Where do you think you’re getting in on this party? Beat it.”