“The heck she wasn’t. I heard the whole business, all about how you were worried about me having an infatuation for an older woman. She said...” Junior’s voice suddenly choked up. His face changed color. “She said altogether too darn much,” he finished.
Mrs. Gentrie said, “Mr. Mason isn’t interested in our family squabbles, Junior. I came here because...”
“I’m old enough now to get out and get a job. I don’t need to work in Dad’s store. I’m worth the wages I’m getting from him and more. I can support myself. I’m a man now.”
Mrs. Gentrie turned to the lawyer, “I’m so worried,” she said. “Junior wasn’t in his room when that shot was fired. He keeps insisting that he was, but I know he wasn’t. Now, I understand that the police have found some fingerprints over in Hocksley’s flat, and I... well, I just wish Junior would tell the truth. That’s all. So I’d know what to expect.”
“You mean the fingerprints which were outlined in the paint?” Mason asked.
She nodded.
Junior said, “I tell you I was in bed.”
Mrs. Gentrie said, by way of explanation, “He’d been out with that stenographer, Opal Sunley, and he swears he took her home about midnight. I’m afraid, Mr. Mason, that he’s just doing it to — well, to give her sort of an alibi. Now you look here, Junior. You were just coming up the stairs to your room when that shot was fired, weren’t you? You took your flashlight and went sneaking down the stairs.”
Junior said, “I thought you said I wasn’t in my room.”
“You weren’t when I looked in there. The bed wasn’t even so much as wrinkled. But I’d heard someone sneaking along the corridor and on the stairs.”