“No possibility of its being in the possession of Mrs. Ives at any time that evening?”
“Not a possibility.”
“Mr. Ives, where were you that evening at nine-thirty o’clock?”
The careless gaiety departed abruptly from Patrick Ives’s face. For a long moment he sat staring at Lambert, coolly and speculatively. His eyes, still speculating, shifted briefly to the hundreds of eager countenances straining toward his, and at the sight of their frantic attention his mouth twisted somewhat mirthlessly. “Unkind, isn’t it,” mocked his eyes, “to keep you waiting!”
“I was at home,” said Patrick Ives.
“What were you doing?”
“Smoking a pipe and looking through a magazine, I think, though I shouldn’t like to swear to the exact time. I wasn’t using a stop watch.”
“In what room?”
“Well, I’m afraid that I can’t help you there much either. I moved about from one room to another, you see. I did a little more work on the boat, smoked, read—I didn’t follow any set programme. I wasn’t aware at the time that it would have been judicious to do so.”
“You are aware now, however, that Melanie Cordier said that you were not in any of the lower rooms when she made her rounds at ten?”