Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/75

 "Can I see him a second before you take me away?"

"For what purpose?"

"I want to see him."

Calvin considered for a moment and then said, "No."

She offered no direct protest, but repeated, "He didn't do it," like a child insisting. She closed her bag and immediately occupied herself with stripping the blankets and sheets from her bed.

"Where do you live?" Calvin asked, watching her.

"Live? Why, here."

"I mean," he explained, "where is your home?"

"You're in it," she replied and he started, slightly.

A few minutes later, the policewoman arrived; and after she had escorted the girl away, Calvin lingered in Joan Daisy's room. From her window he watched for her on the walk below, and he followed her slender, pretty figure until she entered an automobile and was driven off.

Upon descending to the second floor, he found a lull in the proceedings. Denson and Goudy together, with a police stenographer, were grouped in chairs about Ketlar, who had dressed in a new, brown suit and who was seated, sucking at a cigarette.

He jumped up when Calvin confronted him.

"Well, your friend has just admitted more of what you were doing to-night," Calvin accused him. "She's broken on your alibi, Ketlar. She has just admitted that about one o'clock you left her and went out of this building and down to the lake and turned toward your wife's apartment."

Ket jerked and went white, and his cigarette dropped from his lips. "My God, does she say that?"

"She does."

"It's a lie—a damn lie!"

Calvin seated himself. "Sit down, Ketlar, and tell us