“He quit you just before the trick was turned, and he didn’t come back to you. He was no come-back kid,” Chick declared. “He went through the smoker and uncoupled it from the express car. He was the gink who did the job, or one of the bunch—and you know it.”
The woman heard him with hardly a change of countenance.
“You are very much mistaken,” she said icily.
“About what?”
“My knowing anything about the robbery—or the man you mention.”
“He was with you, wasn’t he?”
“He sat with me, yes,” Janet coldly admitted. “But that signifies nothing. There was no other vacant seat when he entered the car, so he sat with me, and we entered into conversation that did not end until he left me and went into the smoker. That’s all I know about him, all I care about him. He was a total stranger to me.”
Chick grinned derisively and shook his head.
“Say, do I look as if I’d swallow that?” he asked, with sinister contempt.
“You may swallow it, or not, as you like,” Janet retorted, with apparent indifference.