“I told you,” Dorothy Gresham flashed at the others.  “I knew Jeff wouldn’t stoop to anything as contemptible as pretending to be Pierre’s friend and then getting him arrested!”

Rand permitted himself a wry inward smile.  He hoped she would not have an opportunity to observe his stooping capabilities before he had finished his various operations at Rosemont.

“I certainly hoped not.”  Mrs. Jarrett relaxed, smiling faintly at Rand.  “Pierre likes you, Colonel.  I hated the thought that you might have betrayed him.  Are you working on the Rivers case, too?”

Rand nodded again, turning to Dot Gresham.  “Your father retained me to make an investigation,” he said.  “After that trouble he had with Rivers about that spurious North & Cheney, he wanted the murderer caught before somebody got around to accusing him.”

“You mean there’s a chance Dad might be suspected?” Dot was scared.

Rand nodded.  The girl was beginning to look suspiciously at Karen and Mrs. Jarrett.  Getting ready to toss Pierre to the wolves if her father were in danger, Rand suspected.  He hastened to reassure her.

“Rivers was still alive when your father reached home, last evening,” he told her.  “That’s been established.”

She breathed her obvious relief.  If Gresham had left home after Rand’s departure with Philip Cabot, she didn’t know it.

Karen, on the other hand, was growing more and more worried.

“Look, Colonel,” she began.  “They didn’t just pull Pierre’s name out of a hat.  They must have had something to suspect him about.”

“Yes.  You shouldn’t have lied to McKenna.  He checked up on your story; the woman across the street told him about seeing Pierre leave here a little before eleven and come back about half an hour later.”

“I was afraid of that,” Karen said.  “I forgot all about that old hag.  There’s nothing that can go on around here that she doesn’t know about; Pierre calls her Mrs. G2.”

“And then,” Rand continued, “McKenna claims that a car like Pierre’s was seen parked in Rivers’s drive about the time Pierre was away from here.”

Mrs. Jarrett moaned softly; her face, already haggard, became positively ghastly.  Karen gasped in fright.

“They only identified it as to model and make; they didn’t get the license number ...  Where did Pierre go, while he was away from here?”

“He went out for cigarettes,” Karen said.  “When we came here from Greshams’, we made some coffee, and then sat and talked for a while, and then we found out that we were both out of cigarettes and there weren’t any here.  So Pierre said he’d go out and get some.  He was gone about half an hour; when he came back, he had a carton, and some hot pork sandwiches.  He’d gotten them at the same place as the cigarettes—­Art Igoe’s lunch-stand.”

“Could Igoe verify that?”

“It wouldn’t help if he did.  Igoe’s place isn’t a five-minute drive from Rivers’s, farther down the road.”