Quinlan smiled thinly. “At one-thirty in the morning? A girl whom you hadn’t seen for months? You didn’t try to telephone her first?”
“No.” Edmund Drake licked his lips and glanced around anxiously. “I took a taxi right over there.”
“Where were you all evening?”
“I — was out.” He glanced covertly at Shayne.
“Where?”
“I don’t see — Captain. Are you intimating that I need to produce an alibi?”
“Unless you want to be charged with murder,” Quinlan assured him coldly.
“Preposterous! Why should I murder my own niece!” Shayne’s lanky body jerked violently erect from its comfortable position. He stared at Drake. Quinlan’s forehead became a mass of horizontal wrinkles above his thin grayish brows. The cold, impersonal expression of his eyes changed once more to a puzzled look as he glanced at Shayne.
Shayne met his glance and shook his disheveled mop of red hair hopelessly while his right thumb and forefinger massaged the lobe of his left ear.
“Your niece?” Quinlan asked in a casual tone.