“And I believe he does,” said Fleming Stone, heartily. “I read about his witnessing, and I am glad of a chance to talk to him.”
Fibsy flushed scarlet at this interest shown in him by the great man, but he only said, simply, “May I speak, Miss Avice?”
“Yes, Fibsy, tell Mr. Stone all you know. But tell him the truth.”
“He won’t lie to me,” said Stone, not unkindly, but as one merely stating a fact.
“No,” agreed Fibsy, looking at Stone, solemnly. “I won’t lie to you. You see it was this way, sir, I’ve got the detective instinck,—and the day after the murder, I went to the place where it was at, to look for clues. Miss Avice, she gimme the day off. An’ I found ’em, sir. The Swede woman told me where the place was where—where Mr. Trowbridge died, and right there I found a shoe button.”
“Fibsy,” and Avice looked at him, “why did you tell Judge Hoyt it was a suspender button?”
“I had to, Miss Avice,” and Fibsy’s face looked troubled “you see I said button to him and the ’xpression on his face warned my instinck not to say shoe button. So I switched.”
“Describe his expression,” said Stone, who was watching the boy closely.
“Well, sir, when he said ‘what kind of a buttun?’ he looked as if a heap depended on my answer. An’ when I said suspender button, he lost all interest. Now, maybe he had a int’rest in a shoe button an’ maybe he didn’t. But I wasn’t takin’ no chances.”
“Fibsy, you’ve the right bent to be a detective!” exclaimed Stone; “that was really clever of you.”