“Who saw him?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Her face darkened. “What the hell do you mean you can’t tell me?”
“Exactly that. It’s confidential as yet.”
She glared at me as though she wanted to bite my head off. “Some girl,” she said. “Some little trollop who’s trying to take you for a ride tells you that she saw Hale entering the apartment house, and you mustn’t say anything, just keep it confidential. So you turn your own partner down because some little petticoat with a sweet smile looks languishingly up into your eyes, and gives you the works. Bosh!”
I said, “One other person told me that was true.”
“Who?”
“Hale.”
“Donald — do you mean to say that you talked with him about it? Why, the one thing that he impressed upon us was that, under no circumstances, were we to start speculating about him. He wanted—”
“Take it easy,” I interrupted. “He didn’t tell me about it in words. He told me about it by his actions.”