"Sure. I know Fancy as well as most. I always looked upon him as a crook, and a very dangerous man with a gun."
"Has he ever been convicted of a crime?"
"Ain't never been able to land him. Generally he gets away by some slick trick, just as he did to-night, or he bluffs off the fellows who go after him with his guns."
"Has any crime ever been fastened on him so positively that there was no doubt that he committed it?"
"Can't say there was; but that don't cut no ice, for he's been in several killings where no gun got busy but his, an' we've been able to track him right up to crimes, but there we lose him. He's too slick to get caught."
"Something like the murder of Miss Mowbray? He is seen leaving the vicinity of the murder, and is immediately suspected of the crime, although probably fifty other men in the town were near the house or on the road before the murder was discovered, eh?"
"That's true enough. I passed the house myself on my way home, just before midnight."
"Why don't you arrest yourself as a suspect? But how was the murder discovered?"
"Some one passing saw a flame at the corner of the house, and, looking through a window, saw that the house was afire. He gave the alarm, and the blaze, which was in a corner of the library, was put out before much damage was done."
"Then the body was discovered, I suppose?"