“To tell you the truth, I didn’t. I started back, and came to the conclusion someone was watching the apartment. I was afraid he would shadow me and find out where Miss Dunton was staying.”
“And you didn’t push the furniture around?”
“Why, no,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I do remember I fell over a chair. I was holding a handkerchief to my face, you know.”
Ellis said, “It looked as though there’d been a struggle in that apartment. Miss Dunton’s purse was lying open, and—”
“He told me he’d dropped my purse when he had the nosebleed,” Marian said.
Ellis frowned, but his eyes, meeting Marian’s, couldn’t hold a stern expression. He said, “Let me do it, please, Miss Dunton.”
“Oh, very well,” she said in a hurt voice.
Ellis couldn’t get up any steam after that. He was licked. Five minutes later, he said, “Very well. The circumstances are exceedingly strange. After this, Mr. Lam, if you want to protect any witness who is in communication with our office, simply advise the office and don’t take the responsibility on your own shoulders.”
I said, “I’m sorry, but I did what seemed best at the time.”
I glanced at Bertha Cool, and then decided I might as well get the whole thing straightened out while I was about it. I said to Bertha, “What was this about some charge on a hit-and-run case being made against me?”