“Well, Mr. Grant, if you really press for an answer, it is ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ The Commissioner received a certain telegram, but he may have acted on other grounds. Even Commissioners can be creatures of impulse, or expediency, just as the situation demands.
“You are here, at any rate.”
“That is what legal jargon terms an admitted fact.”
“Then you had better begin by assuming that I am no villain.”
“It is assumed. It couldn’t well be otherwise after the excellent character you have been given by this young lady.”
“She, at least, will speak well of me, I do believe,” said Grant, with a strange bitterness, for his heart was sore because of the seeming defection of his friend, the postmaster. “What I actually had in mind was the stupidity of the local policeman, who is convinced that I am both a criminal and a fool.”
“The two are often synonymous,” said Furneaux dryly. “But I acquitted you on both counts, Mr. Grant, on hearing, and even seeing, how you spent Monday evening.”
Grant, who had cooled down considerably, found a hint of badinage in this comment.
“You have evidently been told that Miss Martin and I were star-gazing in the garden of my house,” he said. “It happens to be true.”
“Oh, yes. There was a very fine cluster of small stars in Canis Major, south of Sirius, that night.”