“That’s going to make it bad,” I complained. “We can’t stand here and argue very long without being interrupted. Who’s the stout party with cheaters coming this way?”
The boy’s face pinkened. He said:
“ Mr. Dritton, the cashier.”
“Introduce me.”
The boy looked uncomfortable, but he called the cashier’s name. Dritton—a large man with a smooth pink face, a fringe of white hair around an otherwise bald pink head, and rimless nose glasses—came over to us.
The assistant cashier mumbled the introductions. I shook Dritton’s hand without losing sight of the boy.
“I was just saying,” I addressed Dritton, “that we ought to have a more private place to talk in. He probably won’t confess till I’ve worked on him a while, and I don’t want everybody in the bank to hear me yelling at him.”
“Confess?” The cashier’s tongue showed between his lips.
“Sure.” I kept my face, voice and manner bland, mimicking Noonan. “Didn’t you know that Albury is the fellow who killed Donald Willsson?”
A polite smile at what he thought an asinine joke started behind the cashier’s glasses, and changed to puzzlement when he looked at his assistant. The boy was rouge-red and the grin he was forcing his mouth to wear was a terrible thing.
Dritton cleared his throat and said heartily: