He shook his head dispiritedly. “I didn’t. Not a soul. That’s his alibi and there isn’t a blessed thing with which he can support it. I talked with over a hundred truckmen who cover that route. What I had in my mind was that I might possibly find the man who had given him a lift. Normally I’d have stood a chance. It shouldn’t be that hard to track down a witness or two. But as it is everything I try in this case seems to turn to ashes. It just seems as though it isn’t meant that he should stand even the ghost of a chance. The cards are stacked against him.”

Her thoughts ran riot. She clutched desperately at something.

“Must he stick to that alibi?”

“It’s the truth.”

“But if he can’t prove the truth, couldn’t he prove something else?”

“What do you mean?”

Color came to her face. She took a deep breath, and her breasts rose steeply. It was a moment before she said, “He could say that he spent the night with me. I’d swear to it right in court. I’d say he came here before midnight and stayed in bed with me until breakfast time. I don’t give a damn what people will say about me, so long as what I do saves Bob’s life.”

Lowry took her hand in his. “You’re a little nuts about the guy, aren’t you, Terry?”

She smiled faintly. “I guess he’s kind of hard to get out of your system.”

Lowry shook his head. “It wouldn’t do any good your saying a thing like that. Even if his story could be changed there’s still the problem of the landlady who saw him leave the house at four in the morning.”

“He could have left it to come here. That would still give him an alibi for the time of the murder.”

“It isn’t likely. It wouldn’t hold water. They’d see you were going to bat for him, and there are plenty of girls who might be willing to lie away their reputations in court to save the life of the man they love—once loved. They’d feel sorry for you, not for him. But they wouldn’t accept your testimony. No, it will have to be another way, if it’s anything.”

“If.”

They sat down opposite each other, lit cigarettes, and groped feverishly for some valid idea. But ideas wouldn’t come.

“They’ve been soft-pedalling Carrol himself,” Terry remarked after a while. “That is, if I’m reading between the lines in the papers correctly.”