“Who was with you?”

“Two men, detectives. They told me their names, but I don’t remember.”

“I mean with you. Brother, sister, mother?”

“I have no brother or sister. My mother died ten years ago.”

“When did you last see your father alive?”

“Yesterday. When I got home from work he wasn’t there, and it was nearly six o’clock when he came, and he said he had been at the district attorney’s office for three hours; they had been asking him questions about Mr. Ashby. You know about Mr. Ashby, he said he told you about him when he came here. Of course I already knew about him because I work there. I did work there.”

“Where?”

“At the office. That company. Mercer’s Bobbins.”

“Indeed. In what capacity?”

“I’m a stenographer. Not anybody’s secretary, just a stenographer. Mostly typing and sometimes letters for Mr. Busch. My father got me the job through Mr. Mercer.”

“How long ago?”

“Two years ago. After I graduated from high school.”

“Then you knew Mr. Ashby.”

“Yes. I knew him a little, yes.”

“About last evening. Your father came home around six. Then?”

“I had dinner nearly ready, and we talked, and we ate, and then we talked some more. He said there was something he hadn’t told the police and he hadn’t told you, and he was going to go and tell you in the morning and ask you what he ought to do. He said you were such a great man that people paid you fifty thousand dollars just to tell them what to do, and he thought you would tell him for nothing, so it would be foolish not to go and ask you. He wouldn’t tell me what it was. Then a friend of mine came-I was going to a movie with her-and we went. When I got home father wasn’t there and there was a note on the table. It said he was going out and might be late. One of the detectives tried to take the note but I wouldn’t let him. I have it here in my bag if you want to see it.”