Russell's alibi was established. His defence appealed to the jurymen as unassailable. When, after a conference of less than half an hour, they brought in a verdict that Mildred Brace had been murdered by a thrust of the "nail-file dagger" in the hands of a person unknown, nobody in the room was surprised.
And nobody was blind to the fact that the freeing of Eugene Russell seriously questioned the innocence of Berne Webster.
IX
THE BREAKING DOWN OF WEBSTER
Hastings, sprawling comfortably in a low chair by the south window in the music room, stopped his whittling when Berne Webster came in with Judge Wilton. "Meddlesome Mike!" thought the detective. "I sent for Webster."
"Berne asked me to come with him," the judge explained his presence at once. "We've talked things over; he thought I might help him bring out every detail—jog his memory, if necessary."
Hastings did not protest the arrangement. He saw, almost immediately, that Webster had come with no intention of giving him hearty cooperation. The motive for this lack of frankness he could not determine. It was enough that he felt the younger man's veiled antagonism and appreciated the fact that Wilton accompanied him in the rôle of protector.
"If I'm to get anything worth while out of this talk," he decided, "I've got to mix up my delivery, shuffle the cards, spring first one thing and then another at him—bewilder him."