“It’s a splendid morning. We’ve been having splendid weather.”
“But isn’t there a private room where we can talk?” I insisted.
Dritton jumped nervously and questioned the boy:
“What—what is this?”
Young Albury said something nobody could have understood.
I said: “If there isn’t I’ll have to take him down to the City Hall.”
Dritton caught his glasses as they slid down his nose, jammed them back in place and said:
“Come back here.”
We followed him down the length of the lobby, through a gate, and into an office whose door was labeled “President”—old Elihu’s office. Nobody was in it.
I motioned Albury into one chair and picked another for myself. The cashier fidgeted with his back against the desk, facing both of us.
“Now, sir, will you explain this,” he said.
“We’ll get around to that,” I told him and turned to the boy. “You’re an ex-boyfriend of Dinah’s who was given the air. You’re the only one who knew her intimately who could have known about the certified check in time to phone Mrs. Willsson and Thaler. Willsson was shot with a .32. Banks like that caliber. Maybe the gun you used wasn’t a bank gun, but I think it was. Maybe you didn’t put it back. Then there’ll be one missing. Anyway I’m going to have a gun expert put his microscopes and micrometers on the bullets that killed Willsson and bullets fired from all the bank guns.”