“ He did that, Cara,” Tennant said.
She nodded.
His fingers slid inside of the flesh-colored undergarment that was now exposed, and he tore that as he had torn the gown.
“ He did that.”
She nodded again.
His bloodshot eyes darted little measuring glances at her face—swift glances that never kept his eyes from me for the flash of time I would have needed to tie into him.
Then—eyes and gun on me—he smashed his left fist into the girl’s blank white face.
One whimper—low and not drawn out—came from her as she went down in a huddle against the wall. Her face—well, there wasn’t much change in it. She looked dumbly up at Tennant from where she had fallen.
“ He did that,” Tennant was saying.
She nodded, got up from the floor, and returned to her chair.
“Here’s our story.” The man talked rapidly, his eyes alert on me. “Gilmore was never in my rooms in his life, Cara, and neither were you. The night he was killed you were home shortly after one o’clock, and stayed there. You were sick—probably from the wine you had been drinking—and called a doctor. His name is Howard. I’ll see that he’s fixed. He got here at 2:30 and stayed until 3:30.
“Today, this gumshoe, learning that you had been intimate with Gilmore, came here to question you. He knew you hadn’t killed