Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/72

 man did it; and I saw him with her! I saw him, I tell you, from the walk just out here!"

"What's she saying?" a reporter demanded, approaching with a companion and the detectives, curious themselves.

"She's repeating her story about seeing the other man with Ketlar's wife," Calvin informed them.

"But what's the idea here? What was she showing you in the sand?"

"Stones," said Calvin.

"Stars!" she cried. "There they are, see; I was—"

Just then a detective stepped among them. "Bunk!" he said. "Where're you taking her now, sir?" he asked Clarke. "Over to the flat?"

"Adele's flat?" Joan gasped. "Oh, no! No!"

"Huh!" said the detective. "I guess you don't want to go; but—"

"Have you anything else to show me here?" Calvin asked her.

"No."

"This is what you brought me out to see?"

"Yes."

"Then we'll go back."

"I'll go," said Joan Daisy, dully.

On the way from the beach, she further amazed Calvin Clarke by humming. He made no comment about it; he did not speak with her at all, but he listened to her humming a few bars of a cheap, lively jazz tune. Over and over again she hummed it; and then suddenly she made explanation:

"You remember I told you that Ket got Fort Worth or Kansas City—I don't know which—before he went out of my room and he got some jazz, That's the tune he got, Mr. Clarke!" And she hummed her refrain over twice more. "Look it up! You'll see! Check up the