Whatever troubled them concerned them anxiously, for beneath their gayety they were distinctly nervous. Corson convinced himself that they had no intention of running away and could always be found if wanted, so he left, with immediate intention of following the advice of Mr Vail and attaching an assistant. “Not in a thousand years!” was the opinion of the assistant, one Gibbs, after he heard Corson’s tale of the chorus girls. “Those little chippies might be quite willing to kill a man, theoretically, but as for the deed itself, they couldn’t put it over. Still, they must be remembered. You know, the statement that women did it, is surely the truth. Dying messages are invariably true. But it may mean that women caused it to be done,—that it was the work of women, even though the actual stab thrust may have been the deed of a man.” “I don’t think so,” mused Corson. “You haven’t seen the paper. It said, not only, ‘Women did this,’ but it said afterward, ‘Get——’ and then there were two letters that looked like b-o——” “No; I hadn’t heard that! Why, it might have been Ba—and might have meant Babe Russell, after all!” “No; it’s bo,—but it isn’t a capital B. I studied it closely, and I have it put away. I’ll show it to you.” “But the capital doesn’t matter. A man writing, in those circumstances, with his last effort of fading strength, might easily use a small letter instead of a capital. Know anybody beginning with Bo?” “No—why, oh, my goodness! Bob Moore!” “Well, there’s a chance. You’ve had your eyes on Moore, haven’t you?” “Only because he was right there. But Mr Vail,—George Vail, of the Vail Bread Company,—stands up for Moore. To be sure, it was only in a general way,—we only talked a few moments,—but he seemed to think Moore is on the detective order,—not of a criminal sort.” “Why must Moore necessarily be either?” “Only because he’s a detective story shark. Reads murder yarns all the time, and goes to detective story movies.” “That proves just nothing at all. But the ‘Get Bo—’ is important. Anybody else around, beginning with Bo,—or Ba? You see, he naturally wouldn’t form the letters perfectly.” “Ba? There’s Julie Baxter, the telephone girl.” “He’d hardly speak of her as Baxter.” “But,—oh, I say, Gibbs, Moore testifies that, as the man died, he tried to say something and it sounded like ‘Get J—J——’ some name beginning with J!” “Hello! We must inquire as to the fair Julie. Any one else?” “No; no women, that I know of. Young Bates, the heir, begins his name with Ba, but he’s not a woman.” “Have you looked up his record for last evening? What was he doing?” “No, I haven’t. A man can’t do everything at once!” “This thing seems to have a dozen different handles. First of all, I think we want to see the family. “But he hadn’t any family.” “Well, relatives, connections, anybody most interested. Especially the heir.”