It was the draftsman's turn to hesitate.
"I'm prejudiced," he confessed at length. "I know Gridley; he is a worse man than a good many people think he is—and not so bad as some others believe him to be. If he thought you, or Benson, were getting in his way—up at the house, you know——"
Lidgerwood smiled.
"You don't want him for a brother-in-law; is that it, Fred?"
"I'd cheerfully help to put my sister in her coffin, if that were the alternative," said Dawson quite calmly.
"Well," said the superintendent, "he can easily prove an alibi, so far as this wreck is concerned. He went east on 202 yesterday. You knew that, didn't you?"
"Yes, I knew it, but——"
"But what?"
"It doesn't count," said the draftsman, briefly. Then: "Who was the other man, the man who came west on 205?"
"I hate to say it, Fred, but it was Hallock. We saw the wreck, all of us, from the back platform of my car. Williams had just pulled us out on the old spur. Just before Cranford shut off and jammed on his air-brakes, a man ran down the track, swinging his arms like a madman. Of course, there wasn't the time or any chance for me to identify him, and I saw him only for the second or two intervening, and with his back toward us. But the back looked like Hallock's; I'm afraid it was Hallock's."