"I'd like to know, Mr. Lyon, just how much of your innocence is authentic and how much is newspaper imagination."
"Oh, come, you're making fun of me. Really, haven't you any news items to give me?"
"Not a scrap. You are very well able to help yourself to what you want, young man." And Bede suspended the receiver and the conversation.
That cheered Lyon a little, but as he came out into the streets his footsteps lagged. His imagination had achieved little good in the present case. It had simply led him wandering far afield. He had imagined that the woman who fled from the scene of Fullerton's murder might be Mrs. Broughton instead of Miss Wolcott. It was not Mrs. Broughton,--and now Bede knew all about Mrs. Broughton's share in the evening's events. Whether it was Miss Wolcott or not seemed as debatable as at first. Lawrence undoubtedly believed it was. Whether Bede believed it or not, he certainly had unearthed the facts that she had visited the Wellington to see Fullerton earlier in the evening, and that she had been at the drug-store on Hemlock Avenue a few minutes before the time when Fullerton must have been struck down by Lawrence's cane. The cards were therefore practically all in his hands, and the defence could only hope to do what he might graciously permit. It was maddening.
That fatal cane! It was the one bit of evidence more than circumstantial. It must be explained.
In his dejection Lyon had walked along Hemlock Avenue to Sherman Street. The empty lot where the cane had been discovered was on his left, and he crossed the street and stopped to look down into the trampled hollow. That cursed cane! How was it possible that it had come here unless by Lawrence's hand? He scowled at the spot, with gloom on his brow and perplexity in his mind, till someone stopped beside him, and an eager old voice asked,
"What is happening? Anything?"
It was old Mr. Wolcott, eager-eyed and interested as ever. He tried to discover what it was that was attracting Lyon's attention, with a lively curiosity that made Lyon laugh, even in his depression.
"I was looking for an inspiration," he said, "but I can't see one. I'm afraid it's hopeless."
"Sometimes you see queer things when you don't expect to," the old gentleman said, cheerfully. "Once I saw a dog-fight down in that hollow."