“Nowhere at all, sir, I should say,” was the inspector’s discontented reply. “You have let the bird in the hand go, and all the other birds are safer than ever in the bush. Are you so sure there’s no doubt about that alibi?”
“Still harping on that, are you, inspector? Come, put the idea of Walter Brooklyn’s guilt out of your head. It’s not often I take much stock in alibis; but this one is absolutely convincing.”
“I’m not so sure, sir, all the same. At least, I’d have kept hold of the man we had got till we could lay some one else by the heels.”
The superintendent shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “That’s the worst of you, inspector,” he said, “you are impervious to evidence. You never will give up an idea when you’ve once been at the trouble of forming it. And therefore you don’t see how this morning’s business really helps us.”
“Helps us? No, I’m jiggered if I see that. If you’re in the right we are in a worse hole than ever.”
“No, my dear inspector, it does help us.” And the superintendent rubbed his hands with satisfaction. He smiled to himself as he reflected that he could see further than most people through a brick wall.
“How do you mean?” asked the inspector.
“Well, if Walter Brooklyn was not in the house, it is clear that he did not send that telephone message. But some one did send it. Who was that some one? Find him, and you find the murderer. It was clearly sent with the deliberate intention of throwing suspicion on Walter Brooklyn.”
“Yes, if you’re right about the alibi, I see that. But I don’t see that we’re any nearer to finding out who did send it.”
“Well, at least,” said the superintendent, “there are certain things to go upon. First, there is no doubt at all that the message was sent, and sent from Liskeard House. The inquiries at the Exchange prove that.”