"We was sitting up all night playing poker — him and me and these two fellows here, Jim Blotz and Greg Stephens, who comes down from Carlisle. The whole lot of us was sleeping most of Sunday, except at dinner time, when the women folks woke us up.
"We had another poker session last night — we take the game kind of serious down Maryland way. We didn't quit until five o'clock this morning, and I had to rouse Denby up at eight, so as to drive up to Philadelphia. All of us were coming up this way — except the women folks.
"When Denby got a hold of me, I called them by long-distance and told them to jump up here in a hurry. They've all vouched for it that Denby Chadwick didn't step out of that old farmhouse of mine between the time he got there and eight o'clock this morning.
"He was sitting up most of the time — that's why he looks tired out, with all this grief about his poor uncle coming on top of it — "
Two women were nodding their agreement with the speaker. The reporters were looking at the affidavits. Davidson began to dismiss the gathering, hesitating just long enough to answer a reporter's query about young Chadwick.
"Yes, I suspected Denby Chadwick, until I got the facts," Davidson said. "I'm suspecting anybody that comes along in this case. But these testimonies give this young man a perfect alibi, and that's putting him with us in the work we're doing in this case.
"He's just as anxious as I am to find out who murdered his uncle. We are working on a process of elimination, and we aren't passing up a single clue!"
The visitors filed out of the detective's room, and the reporters made hurried notes in order to catch the late editions of the evening newspapers.
The statements of the persons who had testified were sent in full detail. The fact that Denby Chadwick was entirely cleared of all suspicion in his uncle's death was food for screaming headlines. THE next morning, Harry Vincent opened a letter in his room at the Burnham House in Baltimore. He was seated at the writing table, where a copy of a Baltimore newspaper was lying. Harry had been reading of the Chadwick murder. His eyes opened in surprise when he noted that the letter referred to the same matter.
The written letter was in code, inscribed in bright blue ink. The jumbled characters were no puzzle to Harry Vincent. He knew that code by heart. Translated, the letter read: Go to Philadelphia. Take Bruxton with you. Have work for him.