Furthermore, he declared that his presence in the hotel, from the time Delaney had "lost" him until his second appearance at Eidstein's at four o'clock, could be established by the room clerk, two bellboys, and a maid at the Emerson, and by the lawyer, Taliaferro, with whom he had talked on the telephone while there with his mother.
According to him, he had unwittingly evaded Delaney by the simple act of stepping into the elevator and going to the room where his mother, having reached Baltimore an hour later than he, was waiting to hear how he had fared in his interview with Eidstein.
He had hoped, he said, to cover up the $700 shortage at the bank with the money obtained from the dealer in antiques, but, thinking of the risk of his mother's being impoverished, he had renounced at the last moment the plan of getting more money through the mortgage or sale of the home.
"Do you happen to know that a man, clumsily disguised and answering to your description, pawned some of the Withers jewelry in Baltimore today?" Braceway asked.
"Did he?" He looked blank.
"Yes. What do you know about it?"
"I've already told you: not a thing."
Braceway, recognizing the futility for the present of prolonging this line of inquiry, paused, looking at him thoughtfully.
"If I pawned them," Morley added, without raising his eyes, "why wasn't the money found on me?"
"Don't get too smart!" Bristow put in so roughly and suddenly that the prisoner started violently. "What we want is facts, not arguments!"