"You'd better tell me before it's too late. How did you and Clay
Lindsay come to go to that den?"

"We went out to--to see the town."

"But why to that place? Are you in the habit of going there?"

He shuddered. "Never was there before. I had a card. Some one gave
it to me. So we went in for a few minutes--to see what it was like.
The police raided the place." He dropped his sentences reluctantly, as
though they were being forced from him in pain.

"Well?"

"Everybody tried to escape. The lights went out. I found a back door
and got away. Then I came home."

"What about Clay?"

Bromfield told the truth. "I didn't see him after the lights went out,
except for a moment. He was running at the man with the gun."

"You saw the gun?"

He nodded, moistened his dry lips with the tip of his tongue.

"And the--the shooting? Did you see that?"

Twice the words he tried to say faded on his lips. At last he managed