The lieutenant started to speak, changed his mind, and O’Gar brought the shell over and handed it to me.
“Thanks,” I said, putting it in my pocket. “Now listen to my friend there. It’s a good act, if you like it.”
Tennant was winding up his history.
“… Naturally a man who tried a thing like that on an unprotected woman would be yellow; so it wasn’t very hard to handle him after I got his gun away from him. I hit him a couple of times, and he quit—begging me to stop, getting down on his knees. Then we called the police.”
McTighe looked at me with eyes that were cold and hard. Tennant had made a believer of him, and not only of him—the police-sergeant and his two men were glowering at me. I suspected that even O’Gar—with whom I had been through a dozen storms—would have been half-convinced if the engineer hadn’t added the neat touches about my kneeling.
“Well, what have you got to say?” McTighe challenged me in a tone which suggested that it didn’t make much difference what I said.
“I’ve got nothing to say about this dream,” I said shortly. “I’m interested in the Gilmore murder—not in this stuff.” I turned to O’Gar.
“Is the patrolman here?”
The detective-sergeant went to the door, and called: “Oh, Kelly!”
Kelly came in—a big, straight-standing man, with iron-gray hair and an intelligent fat face.
“You found Gilmore’s body?” I asked.