“I don’t know,” I said. “I was sleeping through most of it, but it seems that Robert Tindle — that’s the stepson — had a man working with him by the name of Ringold — or did you read the paper?”
“Ringold? Jed Ringold?” she asked, her voice seeming to jump down my throat.
“That’s the one.”
She kept looking at me for a long time, then she said, “Donald, you’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Falling for a woman. Listen, lover, some day that’s going to get you in an awful jam. You’re young and innocent and susceptible. Women are shrewd and designing. You can’t trust them... I don’t mean all women, but I mean the kind of women who try to use you.”
I said, “No one’s trying to use me.”
She said, “I should have known better. I thought it was too damned improbable at the time.”
“What was?”
“That a girl like Alta Ashbury with a lot of money, swell looks, and a lot of men chasing after her would fall for you. It’s the other way around. You’ve fallen for her, and she’s using you as a cover-up... Went to a movie! Movie, my eye! At eleven o’clock at night.”