"Up?" said Whitney, "not being a Long Islander I don't know your directions. Would 'up' mean toward the city?"
"No, the other way, out along the Sound roads and on toward Peconic."
"Kept to the country, eh? Too fine a night to waste in town."
Price's face darkened. George watching him noticed a slight dilation of his nostrils, a slight squaring of the line of his jaw. His answer came in a tone hard and combative:
"Exactly. I get enough of town in the day. I rode, as I told you, out to the east, a long way—I can't give you the exact route if that's what you want." He suddenly leaned forward and snatched his hat from the table. Holding it against his side he made an ironical bow to his questioner said, "Does that eliminate me as a suspect?"
Whitney laughed, a sound of lazy good humor rich with the tolerance of a vast experience:
"My dear Chapman, why use such sensational terms? Suspect is a word we haven't reached yet. Take this as it's meant—a form, merely a form."
"The form might have included a questioning of me before you took the trouble to look up what I did. Evidently my word wasn't thought sufficient."
His glance, darkly threatening, moved from one man to the other. George started to protest, but he cut in, his words directed at old Whitney:
"It's all I have to offer you now. It's what I say against what you've been told to believe. I can prove no alibi, for I was with no one, saw no one, started alone and stayed alone. That's all you'll get out of me, and you can take it or leave it as you d——n please."