Part 18 (1/2)

”Well, well, let's get at it, and see where we stand. What do you know?”

”Only the message on the paper left by your uncle, and such testimony as we could gather from the employees downstairs. Now, we want to interview you.”

”And I want to be interviewed. Go ahead.”

”Interview all of us,” put in Eliza Gurney, who with Miss Prall had sat silent during the men's colloquy, but was quite ready to talk.

”One at a time,” and Gibbs took up the conversation. ”Mr Bates, where were you last evening?”

”That,” said Richard, ”I decline to state, on the grounds that it has no bearing on the question of my uncle's death. If you ask me where I was at the time of the tragedy, or shortly before, I will tell you. But last evening or yesterday afternoon or morning are not pertinent.”

”You refuse to state where you spent last evening?”

”I do.”

”Not a good thing for you to do,” Gibbs shook his head, ”but let it pa.s.s for the moment. Where were you at two o'clock this morning?”

”In bed and asleep.”

”You can prove this?”

”By me!” spoke up Let.i.tia Prall. ”I heard him come in about twelve and go to his room.”

”H'm. Proof to a degree. How do you know he didn't leave the apartment later?”

”Because I didn't hear him do so.”

”Where is his room, and where is your own?”

After being shown the respective bedrooms, Gibbs remarked that in his opinion Bates could easily have left his room without Miss Prall's knowledge, if she were asleep at the time.

”Unless you are unusually acute of hearing, are you?”

Now this was a sensitive point with the spinster. Her hearing was not what it had once been, but she never acknowledged it. She greatly resented the busy finger of time as it touched her here and there, and often pretended she heard when she did not. Both her nephew and her companion good-naturedly humored her in this little foible, and at Gibbs' question they looked up, uncertainly.

”Of course I am!” was Miss Prall's indignant reply to the detective's question. ”I hear perfectly.”

”Are you sure?” said Gibbs, mildly; ”for I have noticed several times when you have seemed not to hear a side remark.”

”Inattention, then,” snapped Let.i.tia. ”I am a thoughtful person, and I often take little notice of others' chatter.”

”But you are sure you could have heard your nephew if he had gone out of his place last night after----”

”But I didn't go out!” declared Bates. ”You're absurd to imply that I did, unless you have some reason on which to base your accusation!”

”We have to locate you before we can go further, Mr Bates,” insisted Gibbs, who had a.s.sumed leaders.h.i.+p, while Corson sat, with folded arms, taking in anything he found to notice.

And Corson, though lacking in initiative, was a close observer, and he saw a lot that would have escaped his notice had he been obliged to carry on the inquiry.

”Let's try it,” Corson said, suddenly. ”Go into your room, please, Miss Prall, and shut the door, and see if you can hear me go out.”