"There's only one thing wrong with what we got from 'Big Jim,'" Brennan said as they left the jail, "and that is that it comes from a man facing a term in the penitentiary. It's difficult for people to believe a confessed swindler like Hatch, although he's telling the truth. Even his wife's story would be received skeptically simply because she is his wife. Gibson has such a hold on the city, such a reputation for honesty and integrity, such influential support, that his mere denial of what Hatch says would be believed implicitly."
"But consider Hatch's story along with the framed-up Spring street raid and the information we have of how Cummings opened and closed the town to convince the people that Gibson is the only man who can stop crime," John argued.
"We must look at it from the reader's viewpoint," said Brennan. "It's the reader whom we have to convince. He wants facts, plain, hard facts. We have nothing to actually show that Cummings framed the Spring street raid in collusion with Gibson. We have nothing to actually show that the opening and closing of the city by Cummings was to build up a reputation for Gibson. All that is mere inference, suspicion. And the weakness in Hatch's story is in the fact that he is a crook himself, although you and I know that he told us the truth."
"Then we haven't enough yet?" said John.
"I'm afraid not."
"But you said last night that Cummings had made his one big mistake."
"And I wasn't wrong when I said it. We don't have to take Hatch's story simply as it stands. It's up to us now to get corroboration enough to make it undeniable."
"How?"
"By finding someone who has seen Gibson visit Cummings' apartment, a janitor, a neighbor, the clerk at the desk, anyone."
"Suppose no one saw him."