Swamped

"So you don't know why all these people are at the party?" you ask. "It seems to be invitation only."

"Well, I didn't get an invitation, so I wouldn't know," Colleen says with a shrug. "Then again, I'm not actually attending, just watching this door."

"Nobody's shown you their invitations?"

"Well, this isn't the door they're entering through, is it? If anyone did, I guess I'd just tell 'em to go to the main galley entrance. Like I already said, I don't have a key, I'm just watching."

Hmm.

"I wonder how you get an invitation, if Lou doesn't know that many people." You pause. "What did he say when he asked you to stand guard?"

"Oh, he just reminded me of the favor and said he was having a birthday party, it had ended up bigger than he planned and he wanted to keep it private. So he asked me to make sure nobody tried to sneak in through this door. The cook said that was fine, since nobody else is supposed to go through here anyways."

"Bigger than he planned? Did he mention how that happened?"

She's getting nervous.

"I don't think he did... well, maybe he mentioned something about how a couple of his friends wanted to bring their friends and then that started getting out of hand. But he was too shy to actually rescind any invitations, so he just tried to stop more from going out. Think it might have been something like that?"

His friends wanted to bring their friends. Hmm.

What if this whole thing wasn't Lou's idea? What if someone talked him into it as cover for whatever they were scheming, and then Lou would get blamed if anything went wrong?

Well, whether that's right or not, Colleen seems to know something about what's going on. Enough to be evasive with her answers. Maybe you could get her to slip up and reveal something about whoever's involved.

But what can you ask to try and lead her that way, without being too obvious about it?