Part 17 (1/2)

”They all went off together,--I mean the girls did. He bundled 'em into a taxicab, gave the driver a bill and said good-night. That's the way he always does. He never escorts 'em home. Then he came back in here, settled his account, lit a cigar and strolled off by himself.”

”At what time was this?”

”Abut one, or a little before. Not very late. Sir Herbert's no villain.

I read him like a book. He just liked to see those girls enjoy a good supper, same's he liked to see 'em dance on the stage. Anyway, there's the history of the evening, so far as I know anything about it.”

Corson went away, went to the theater where the girls belonged,--found out where they lived and went there.

The four lived in the same boarding house, and one and all refused to appear at any such unearthly hour as ten A. M.

But the strong arm of the law was used as an argument, and, after a time, four kimonoed and petulant-faced maidens put in an appearance.

Corson meant to be very intimidating, but he found himself wax in their hands. One and all they denied knowing anything of Sir Herbert Binney after he had entertained them at supper and sent them home in a cab.

They expressed mild surprise at his tragic fate, but no real regret.

They seemed to Corson like four heartless, brainless dolls who had no thought, no interest outside their silly selves.

But in the dark eyes of Viola Mersereau and in the blonde, rosy face of Babe Russell he saw unmistakable signs of fear,--and, working on this, he bl.u.s.tered and accused and threatened until he had them all in hysteria.

”You've not got a chance!” he declared. ”You're caught red-handed! You two said in so many words that you wished the old chap was dead, and after you got home, you sneaked out,--whether there were others to know it, or not, I can't say,--but you two sneaked out, went to The Campanile, waited your chance, dashed in and stabbed the man and dashed away again. And you'd been safe, but for his living long enough to tell on you! 'Women did this!' Of course they did! And _you're_ the women!

Who else could it be? What other women,--what other sort of women would commit such a deed? Come now, are you going to own up?”

CHAPTER VII

Enlightening Interviews

The avalanche of denial, the flood of vituperation and the general hullabaloo that was set up by the four girls at Corson's accusation reduced the detective to a pulp of bewilderment. The girls saw this and pursued their advantage. They stormed and raged, and then, becoming less frightened they guyed and jollied the poor man until he determined that he must have help of some sort.

Moreover, he felt sure now that these youngsters never committed murder.

Even the Mersereau girl, the vamp, as she had been called, was a young thing of nineteen, and her vampire effect was only put on when occasion demanded.

”S'posen I did say I'd like to kill him!” she exclaimed, ”that don't mean anything! S'posen I said I died o' laughin', would you think I was dead? Those things are figgers of speech,--that's what they are!”

She paraded up and down the room with a tragedy-queen air, and rolled her practiced eyeb.a.l.l.s at Corson.

And Babe Russell was equally scornful, though her soft, gentle effects were the opposite of Viola's ways.

”Silly!” she said, shaking her pinkened finger at the detective. ”To think us nice, pretty little girls would kill a big grown-up man! First off, we _couldn't_ do it,--we wouldn't have the noive! And we'd be too 'fraid of getting caught. And we, wouldn't do it anyway,--it isn't in the picture!”

They seemed so straightforward and so sensible that Corson began to think it was absurd to suspect them, and yet the two he watched most closely were surely afraid of something. They talked gayly, and babbled on smilingly, but they glanced at each other with anxious looks when they thought the detective wasn't looking.

Whatever troubled them concerned them anxiously, for beneath their gayety they were distinctly nervous.

Corson convinced himself that they had no intention of running away and could always be found if wanted, so he left, with immediate intention of following the advice of Mr Vail and attaching an a.s.sistant.

”Not in a thousand years!” was the opinion of the a.s.sistant, one Gibbs, after he heard Corson's tale of the chorus girls. ”Those little chippies might be quite willing to kill a man, theoretically, but as for the deed itself, they couldn't put it over. Still, they must be remembered. You know, the statement that women did it, is surely the truth. Dying messages are invariably true. But it may mean that women caused it to be done,--that it was the work of women, even though the actual stab thrust may have been the deed of a man.”