“If it was your duty, why didn’t you tell the police when you first found it out?”
“I will be quite frank with you, Miss Cowper. I did not, because, until your very smart work in proving Mr. Brooklyn’s alibi, my best chance of getting him off was to be able to throw unexpected suspicion on some one else at the trial.”
“I call it beastly—even to think of using methods like that.”
Thomas was very suave. “But I suppose, Miss Cowper, you would not have liked to see your stepfather condemned. I had to do the best I could.”
“I don’t care. It can’t be right to throw suspicion on an innocent man like that. Do you—yourself—believe Winter did it? Why didn’t you do what he did—clear my stepfather by proving the truth of what he said?”
“Perhaps, Miss Cowper, it was because I am not so clever as you are. I have already congratulated you on the way you have managed this affair.”
“I don’t want your congratulations. Do you believe Winter did it?”
“As to that, Miss Cowper, I do not pretend to know. It is for the police, and not for me, to find out.”
Joan, on hearing this, simply turned her back on him, and walked away. Thomas very politely raised his hat to her back, told Ellery that he must be off, and hailed a passing taxi. Ellery hurried after Joan.
For a minute after he came up with her, she strode on fast, saying nothing. Then, “Don’t you think it’s beastly?” she said.