Again the silence, curious, tense and dramatic. Little Jimmy,
the bartender, who had leaned forward to listen, stood with his
mouth slightly open and the cocktail-shaker which was in his hand
leaked drops upon the counter. The first conscious impulse of
everybody seemed to be to glance suspiciously around the room.
The four young men at the bar, Jimmy and one waiter, Francis and
Sir Timothy Brast, were its only occupants.
"I say, you know, that's a bit thick, isn't it?" Sidney Voss
stammered at last. "I wasn't in the place at all, I was in
Manchester, but it's a bit rough on these other chaps, Victor's
pals."
"I was dining at the Cafe Royal," Jacks declared, loudly.
Morse drew a little breath.
"Every one knows that I was at Brighton," he muttered.
"I went home directly the bar here closed," Jimmy said, in a
still dazed tone. "I heard nothing about it till the next
morning."
"Alibis by the bushel," Fairfax laughed harshly. "As for me, I
was doing my show--every one knows that. I was never in the
place at all."
"The murder was not committed in the place," Francis commented
calmly.
Fairfax slid off his stool. A spot of colour blazed in his pale
cheeks, the glass which he was holding snapped in his fingers.
He seemed suddenly possessed.
"I say, what the hell are you getting at?" he cried.
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