"Look here, Hemingway, if Carpenter was shown off the premises at 9.58 by Fletcher, how can he have seen the murder?"
"Perhaps he wasn't shown off the premises," said the Sergeant slowly. "Perhaps Mrs. North made that up." He paused, and scratched his chin. "Yes, I see what you mean. Getting what you might call involved, isn't it? It looks to me as though Charlie Carpenter knew a sight more about this business than we gave him credit for."
Chapter Eleven
The amorous couple, interrogated at the police station by Hannasyde, were eager to be of assistance, but as their evidence was vague, and often contradictory, it was not felt that either could be considered a valuable witness. The girl, who was an under-housemaid enjoying her evening out, no sooner discovered that the fact of her having seen a man in evening dress was considered important by the police than she at once began to imagine that she had noticed more than she had at first admitted.
"I thought he looked queer," she informed Hannasyde. "Oo, I thought, you do look queer! You know: funny."
"In what way funny?" asked Hannasyde.
"Oh, I don't know! I mean, I can't say exactly, but there was something about him, the way he was walking - awfully fast, you know. He looked like a gangster to me."
At this point her swain intervened. "Go on!" he said. "You never!"
"Oh, I did, Syd, honest, I did!"
"You never said nothing to me about it."