“Stan asked me what I was doing there, and I told him my tale of woe. That was the first time Stan knew that Bernie and I were so thick. I met Bernie through Stan, but Stan didn’t know we had got so chummy.
“Stan was worried for fear it would come out that Bernie had been to see him that night, because it would make a lot of trouble for him—some sort of shady deal they had on, I guess. So he didn’t go out to see Bernie. That’s about all there is to it. I got some money from Stan, and stayed in his rooms until the police had cleared out of the neighborhood; because neither of us wanted to get mixed up in anything. Then I came home. That’s straight—on the level.”
“Why didn’t you get this of your chest before?” I demanded, knowing the answer.
It came.
“I was afraid. Suppose I told about Bernie throwing me down, and said I was close to him—a block or so away—when he was killed, and was half-full of vino? The first thing everybody would have said was that I had shot him! I’d lie about it still if I thought you’d believe me.”
“So Bernie was the one who broke off, and not you?”
“Oh, yes,” she said lightly.