"Well, that has torn it!" said Wake. "Surely to goodness they couldn't have run a flex to the electro-magnet all the way from Palings!"
"Talk sense!" snapped Hemingway. "Run a flex from Palings! Yes, over the lawn, and down through the shrubbery, and across the stream, and up the other bank! I wonder if they laid it under ground, or had it fixed up on poles?"
"Well, I said surely they couldn't have!" protested the Sergeant.
"They couldn't have, and what's more there wasn't any point to it, even if it had been possible. What's the whole aim and object of firing a gun by means of a contraption like that?"
"To provide yourself with a water-tight alibi," replied Wake.
"You're right. And what kind of an alibi had any of that Palings lot provided themselves with? Or Mr. Silent Steel? Or his High and Mightiness Prince Tiddly-Push? Or young Baker? Who had the only alibi that was so good no one but me thought of trying to bust it?"
"Yes, it does look like White," said Cook. "Don't think it's any pleasure to me to have to say the Dower House isn't wired!"
"It not only looks like White; it was White," said Hemingway. "It couldn't have been anyone else."
"No, but there's another point as well, though I dare say it doesn't mean so much," said Wake. "How did he get the rifle in the first place?"
"I don't know, but if you go and ask them up at Palings, they'll tell you anyone could have taken it."