"And you left Milhauser's house at what time?"
"Half-past ten."
"Why did it take you so long to get back to the hotel?"
"Milhauser's house, as you know, is away out of town—beyond Richmond College. There's a horse car which runs at irregular intervals between the college and the Broad Street end of the Fredericksburg Railroad, using the track of that railroad when no train is due. When I got to the college gate it was raining heavily and I took shelter under a sort of shed opposite the gates to wait for the car. It didn't come, and at last I decided to walk on."
"Why did you turn south and into Grace Street, instead of coming on down Broad?"
"Because it was raining and muddy, and the sidewalks are better in Grace Street. Besides, as my hotel is in Main Street I had to turn south at some point on the journey."
"Yes, of course."
After a period of silent thinking to no purpose, Jack Towns said:
"It's a queer case. All those girls swear you were in the school a little after twelve. Milhauser, if questioned, would have to swear that you left his house at half-past ten. You saw nobody else after that, who could even suggest an alibi. You got to the hotel drenched and dripping, at precisely the time you would have got there if you had been chased out of the school at the time the intruder was. You admit that you passed the school at the time of the disturbance. The case is so clearly made out against you, both by the positive testimony of eyewitnesses, and by all the circumstances, that any jury ever empanelled would have to convict you. Why, I'd feel bound to convict you myself—"
"Do you mean that you have the remotest shadow of doubt as to my innocence of this charge?" sternly demanded Westover, rising.