“Oh, judge! Her name isn’t going to get into it, too, is it?”
“How are you going to stop these police digging up all sorts of things?” Pres countered. “And if Miss Florrine can alibi you——”
“But she can’t,” Curly protested. “I haven’t seen her since this afternoon at the rodeo and then I didn’t see her to speak to.” He hesitated a second, then said: “We don’t want to drag any nice lady’s name into this, judge, but between you and me I was looking for her, Millie having turned me down and all that. But she wasn’t where she and I met last night. So I looked round a while and then went home and went to bed.”
He explained further. “Being kind of upset, one way and another, I forgot to clean my pistol like I’d intended to. Red Peeks had used it for the show, you know. And the police, finding it had been fired—telling ’em about Peek’s firing it made no difference, because it wouldn’t be no dirtier if I had fired it afterward——”
“I know,” interrupted Campbell. “You didn’t call on Miss Florrine at her home, I take it.”
“She thought her folks might object, me being a cowboy and all,” Curly confided. “So we met at one of these cabaret dance places—the Monaco is the name of it.”
“The Monaco, eh? Who did you see there you knew—not last night when you were with Miss Florrine, but tonight, when you couldn’t find her?”
“Nobody,” declared Curly with obvious sincerity. “Not a soul. I went in and looked around and she wasn’t there, so I bought me a drink for manners, and pretty soon I went out and looked in a couple other places and then I beat it home to the hotel.”
“Was there anybody in the alley when you came out of the Monaco?”