"In the way women do tell--generally and without the detail I want, sir. But Miss Mason was crying so, and I was consoling her so, that I didn't catch on to everything, Calvert." Here Tracey's voice became more earnest. "Just you trust me to the hilt. I'm your friend, right away through, and God knows you need one."
"Do you think I am in danger?"
"On the face of it, I do."
"But I can produce an alibi."
"Good again. What's that, anyhow?"
"Just this. I was asleep in my lodgings up till nine o'clock on that night, and only went down to the theatre half an hour later. I believe that the woman was killed between eight and nine."
"That's all right enough," assented the American, looking at the ash of his cigarette. "But you were in the house later, and you've come in for the money, and the dagger was yours. There may be a way of the prosecution getting out of the woman having been killed so early, and then you get left."
"Tracey, I swear when I saw the body it was almost cold."
"Then why didn't you call in the police?"
"Because I lost my head," said Arnold, much distressed.