So the two went to the apartment of Letitia Prall, and there found the family connections of Sir Herbert Binney in a high state of excitement. It was nearly noon, and Richard Bates was impatiently waiting the arrival of the detective, whom he had been expecting all the morning. “Look here,” he said to the two men when they came in, “I want you to take hold of this case with me,—if you can’t do it, I’ll get somebody who can. I don’t want you to be off skylarking on a wild goose chase, while I sit here waiting for you——” “One moment, Mr Bates,” said Corson, sharply; “we’re not detectives in your employ; we’re police officers, and we’re conducting this case in accordance with orders.” “Well, well, let’s get at it, and see where we stand. What do you know?” “Only the message on the paper left by your uncle, and such testimony as we could gather from the employees downstairs. Now, we want to interview you.” “And I want to be interviewed. Go ahead.” “Interview all of us,” put in Eliza Gurney, who with Miss Prall had sat silent during the men’s colloquy, but was quite ready to talk. “One at a time,” and Gibbs took up the conversation. “Mr Bates, where were you last evening?” “That,” said Richard, “I decline to state, on the grounds that it has no bearing on the question of my uncle’s death. If you ask me where I was at the time of the tragedy, or shortly before, I will tell you. But last evening or yesterday afternoon or morning are not pertinent.” “You refuse to state where you spent last evening?” “I do.” “Not a good thing for you to do,” Gibbs shook his head, “but let it pass for the moment. Where were you at two o’clock this morning?” “In bed and asleep.” “You can prove this?” “By me!” spoke up Letitia Prall. “I heard him come in about twelve and go to his room.” “H’m. Proof to a degree. How do you know he didn’t leave the apartment later?” “Because I didn’t hear him do so.” “Where is his room, and where is your own?” After being shown the respective bedrooms, Gibbs remarked that in his opinion Bates could easily have left his room without Miss Prall’s knowledge, if she were asleep at the time. “Unless you are unusually acute of hearing, are you?” Now this was a sensitive point with the spinster. Her hearing was not what it had once been, but she never acknowledged it. She greatly resented the busy finger of time as it touched her here and there, and often pretended she heard when she did not. Both her nephew and her companion good-naturedly humored her in this little foible, and at Gibbs’ question they looked up, uncertainly. “Of course I am!” was Miss Prall’s indignant reply to the detective’s question. “I hear perfectly.” “Are you sure?” said Gibbs, mildly; “for I have noticed several times when you have seemed not to hear a side remark.” “Inattention, then,” snapped Letitia. “I am a thoughtful person, and I often take little notice of others’ chatter.”