Denver uncrossed his legs and then crossed them again. “I didn’t know whether you remembered that.”
“What?”
“My coming in that particular night—or morning.”
Granice swung round in his chair. “Why, man alive! That’s why I’m here now. Because it was you who spoke for me at the inquest, when they looked round to see what all the old man’s heirs had been doing that night—you who testified to having dropped in and found me at my desk as usual. ... I thought that would appeal to your journalistic sense if nothing else would!”
Denver smiled. “Oh, my journalistic sense is still susceptible enough—and the idea’s picturesque, I grant you: asking the man who proved your alibi to establish your guilt.”
“That’s it—that’s it!” Granice’s laugh had a ring of triumph.
“Well, but how about the other chap’s testimony—I mean that young doctor: what was his name? Ned Ranney. Don’t you remember my testifying that I’d met him at the elevated station, and told him I was on my way to smoke a pipe with you, and his saying: ‘All right; you’ll find him in. I passed the house two hours ago, and saw his shadow against the blind, as usual.’ And the lady with the toothache in the flat across the way: she corroborated his statement, you remember.”
“Yes; I remember.”
“Well, then?”
“Simple enough. Before starting I rigged up a kind of mannikin with old coats and a cushion—something to cast a shadow on the blind. All you fellows were used to seeing my shadow there in the small hours—I counted on that, and knew you’d take any vague outline as mine.”