"You needn't go into it on my account," replied Carnes, crossing his legs and clasping his two hands behind his head; "I'm satisfied."
"As how?"
"He never did it."
"Ah! how do you reason the case?"
"First, he isn't a fool; second, if he had taken the body he would have made use of it that night; it was fast decomposing, and before to-night would be past pleasant handling. Then he, being called away, if he had instructed others to disinter the body, would never have instructed them to hide it on his own premises, much less to disrobe it for no purpose whatever. Then, last and most conclusive, there's the pick and spade."
"And what of them?"
"This of them," unclasping his hands, setting his two feet squarely on the floor, and bringing his palms down upon his knees. "You know old Harding, the hardware dealer?"
I nodded. Old Harding was the elder brother of the Trafton farmer who had excited my eagerness to see Trafton by discussing its peculiarities on the railway train.
"Well," leaning toward me and dropping out his words in stiff staccato. "After the crowd had left Jim Long and myself in possession of the doctor's premises, old Harding came back. I saw that he wanted to talk with Jim, and I went out into the yard. Presently the two went into the barn, and I skulked around till I got directly behind the window where those tools were found. And here's what I heard, stripped of old Harding's profanity, and Jim's cranky comments. Last year Harding's store was visited by burglars, and those identical tools were taken out of it along with many other things. You observed that they were quite new. Harding said he could swear to the tools. Now, if others had exhumed the body for the doctor, they would not have left their tools in his stable and in so conspicuous a place. If the doctor exhumed it, how did he obtain those tools? They were stolen before he came to Trafton."