"We had legal advice, sir. Not from Mr. Corveth, but from another lawyer, who once defended Spike Talley."
"Go on."
"We had the house on Thirty-Ninth street searched from top to bottom without discovering any clues as to what became of the body. It was not until we went to Mr. ... to the rich man's country place, that we began to make progress. We learned there, that two days after the murder, that was Sunday, the owner brought a barrel up from the city in the back of his automobile. He informed his servants that it contained a new poison with which he intended to spray his fruit trees—I should explain that he is an extensive raiser of fruit, and under his supervision the barrel was put in a little shed in one of the orchards where the spraying apparatus, the poisons and so on were kept."
"Can't you establish a connection between the barrel and the house on Thirty-Ninth street?"
"To a certain extent, yes. When we learned of the barrel some of us went back to the Thirty-Ninth street neighborhood to investigate. We have a grocer who will testify that he sold such an empty barrel to the man in question, who was particular to see that he got a perfectly fitting head to the barrel. He told the grocer he wanted to ship some china up to his country place. He carried the barrel away in his car."
"Did the grocer know the man who bought the barrel?"
"No, sir. But he can identify the man. And describe the car."
"Well, assuming that the barrel contained a body when it arrived at the country place, what became of it after that?"
"We have one of the rich man's laborers to testify to that. On the following day, Monday, this man was ordered to assist his master in one of the orchards. The day is fixed in the man's mind because it was Decoration Day and he was disappointed of getting a holiday. I should tell you that the rich man personally supervised his orchards and often worked in them himself, so that his actions on this day excited no particular remark among his servants. He ordered the laborer to gather up all the piles of twigs and branches which had been pruned in that particular orchard during the winter, and make one great pile to be burned. He pointed out a spot of waste ground at a little distance from the trees where the fire was to be made. He then went away.
"He returned to the orchard when the work was done. He then had a small can of coal oil. His laborer ventured to remonstrate with him on the danger of making so great a fire, but his master curtly replied that he knew what he was about. He sent the laborer on an errand to a distant part of the estate, saying that he would remain to watch the fire. The laborer after his rebuke, with a natural hope perhaps that the fire would get beyond his master, concealed himself behind some shrubbery at a little distance and watched.