Black Alibi by Cornell Woolrich

in a way that suggested puzzlement of some sort, rather than contrition.
    “Juridically, of course, you are not responsible,” Robles went on. “That is to say, you did not foresee this, did not mean it to happen, cannot be punished personally for it. But morally you are to blame for it. It is through you alone that this girl lost her life. That is why I so readily acceded to your request and brought you down here with me to let you see her for yourself. It may teach you a lesson.”
    “It wasn’t remorse that made me ask to come here,” Manning said quietly. “Nor morbid curiosity either. You’ve got me wrong. It’s—well I’ve had a troubled feeling that I can’t seem to shake off ever since I first heard of it.”
    “You should have,” said Robles severely.
    “No, you still don’t get me.” He ran one hand baffledly up through his hair. “Are you sure that thing , as you call it, did this?”
    Robles looked at him first in astonishment, then almost in scorn. “What are you trying to suggest, it didn’t? Well, you’ve just seen with your own eyes. What else but the claws of such a monster could leave such ravages? She was in ribbons. No, there is no doubt in our minds on that score, how can there be? I could take you over to our laboratory, let you talk to some of the men there. Small bits of fuzz, loosened hairs from its coat, were found upon her body. They are in our possession right now. What more do you ask?”
    “Nothing,” admitted Manning, looking down. “Nothing more. But then why have I got this dissatisfied feeling—?” He didn’t finish it. “Was she—did it make any attempt to—?” he faltered presently.
    Robles finished it for him without a qualm, with the matterof-factness of the professional investigator. “Was she eaten, is that what you are driving at? No. I don’t know whether they do or not, I don’t know enough about them. I must ask the curator of the zoo. In any case, there is sufficient reason for its having done so this time. It occurred outside her very door, in full hearing of the mother and brother. They came rushing out, and the monster was undoubtedly frightened away before it had time to—accomplish its full purpose. If, as I said, they do that.”
    “Well, was it seen? ” Manning persisted discontentedly. “That’s what I want to know. If you say this happened right in front of her own door, and there are other houses around there, was there anyone who actually saw it? There should have been, if she screamed.”
    “Oh, unless someone saw it, it doesn’t exist, is that it? That’s a very risky theory in police work, don’t you think? The houses around there are of the poor, you know the kind. One-or two-room hovels, mostly without windows, simply with a single entrance at the front. By the time they began peering timidly forth up and down the -lane, it was over. Some claim they were just in time to glimpse some black form slinking around the turn at the bottom of the alley. They may have, they may not have. What difference does it make?”
    “It isn’t that I really doubt the jaguar attacked her,” Manning said hesitantly. “I have no theories about this. I’m not a detective at all, just a press agent out of a job. Only-only—I just have that peculiar feeling I spoke of, that there’s more to this than meets the eye.”
    “More? What more could there be?” countered Robles. “What more should there be?”
    Manning tugged perplexedly at the skin on the back of his neck. “I don’t know myself. I can’t explain. But, tell the truth, doesn’t it strike you as strange, almost incredible, that a wild thing, a jungle animal the size and conspicuousness of this jaguar, should remain at large, undetected and absolutely unseen by the human eye, in a city this large, and for this length of time? This isn’t a hill village, with the jungles near by. This is the third largest city of South America. It has not left it and then come back again,