"Say," he shouted at the top of his might, "here's a girl he was with at six o'clock."
It seemed as if only the men near at hand either heard or paid attention. On the farther side, away from Beth, the shouts for mob law were increasing. She turned to Bostwick hotly.
"Can't you do anything? Tell them he was there with us—down at Mrs. Dick's at six o'clock!"
"He wasn't!" said Searle. "He left there at five forty-five."
The man who had shouted listened to them both.
"Five forty-five?" he repeated. "That makes a difference!"
The drummer had caught the shout from out at the edge.
"Who's that?" he called. "Who's got that alibi?"
"All wrong!—No good!" yelled the man who stood by Beth.
The girl had failed to realize how her statement would sound—in such a place as Goldite. Van had turned sick when it reached him. He was emphatically denying the story. The gist of it went through the mass of maddened beings, only to be so soon impugned by the man who had started it from Beth. The fury, at what was deemed an attempted deception, burst out with accumulated force.