“‘Your relations with Mr. Hathaway were always of a friendly nature?’
“‘Eminently so.’
“The answer was straightforward and the look that accompanied it was open and direct, the only one, by the way, during the entire interview. Of course I was not at the time aware of the unharmonious interview which, as Miss Hathaway reported to you, occurred at her father’s house on the evening preceding Memorial Day. Lie No. 1, conceding that he told the truth about the note which he received from the cashier on the evening of the tragedy.
“‘Now, this revolver of Mr. Hathaway’s, what sort of a weapon was it, Mr. Felton?’ I asked. He gave me a half-startled look and I fancied that his gaze strayed for an instant to the safe set in the wall of his library. It flashed upon me that the lost gun was concealed behind the steel door of that same safe.
“‘The revolver,’ he said, in an absent sort of way; ‘oh, it was an ordinary affair, 32 caliber, I believe they called it, nickeled and with a pearl handle. I had often seen it lying in Mr. Hathaway’s drawer, but so far as I know it was never used.’
“‘Would you recognize that revolver if you should see it again, Mr. Felton?’
“‘I don’t know as I could positively identify it. Revolvers are so much alike, are they not?’ I nodded, and again his eyes shifted toward the door of his safe.
“Well, as I say, I talked with him for about an hour, most of the interview dealing with the forgery case of two years ago, in which our mysterious friend, Ernest Stanley, figured as the principal. But of that more later.
“It was about 5 o’clock when I called at Felton’s house, and the supper bells of the neighborhood were ringing when I left. Instead of going to the hotel I struck down a side street to the river road, for a smoke and a stroll, and a chance to run the Hathaway case over in my mind.
“Half a mile below the village there is quite a stretch of road without any houses along it. The cemetery is on one side, the river on the other. I was sprawling on the stone wall that skirts the city of the dead and looking toward the village, when I saw a figure rapidly approaching. ‘Cyrus Felton or I’m a goat!’ I exclaimed, and rolled out of sight behind the wall. My eyesight is keen and I could not mistake the tall, lank form of the bank president. ‘What the deuce is he doing down this road at an hour when he should be peacefully eating his supper?’ I wondered.