“In that case,” he said to Whiting, “an alibi is always worthless, for they are, according to the learned gentleman, always faked.”
“Not at all,” said Stone, easily. “An alibi is only ‘faked’, as you call it, by the criminal. Had Stryker been the criminal, he would have been shrewd enough, in all probability, to be prepared with a story to tell of where he spent that afternoon, and not say he doesn’t remember.”
The butler himself nodded his head. “That’s right! Of course I wouldn’t kill the master I loved,—the saints forgive me for even wording it!—but if I did, I’d surely have sense to provide an alloby, or whatever you call it.”
As no further questioning seemed to incriminate the man, he was dismissed from the room.
Baffled in his attempt to prove his somewhat vague theory as to Stryker, Duane insisted on a consideration of the note alleged by Avice to have been found in her uncle’s desk.
Judge Hoyt took up this matter somewhat at length. He admitted that Miss Trowbridge had found the note, as she averred, but he urged that it be not taken too seriously, for in his opinion, it had been written on Mr. Trowbridge’s typewriter by other fingers than the owner’s. And it was probably done, he opined, to turn suspicion away from his client.
“And do you want suspicion to rest on your client?” asked Stone.
“I do not and I do not propose that suspicion shall rest on him. But I do not care to divert it from him by fraudulent means.”
Hoyt was careful not to glance toward Avice. He regretted her impulsive act in forging that note, and he felt sure that if he appeared to bank on it, the truth would come out. So he endeavored to have the note’s implication discarded, and the matter ignored.
But this attitude, of itself, roused Whiting’s suspicions.