“As a matter of fact, Mr. Tate, you were not in Louisville! You were at Avery’s bungalow that night, and you left the quarry station on a freight train that was sidetracked on the quarry switch to allow the Chicago train to pass. You rode to Davos, which you reached at two o’clock in the morning. There you registered under a false name at the Gerber House, and went home the next evening pretending to have been at Louisville. You are a bachelor, and live in rooms over your bank, and there was no one to keep tab on your absences but your clerks, who naturally thought nothing of your going to Louisville, where business often takes you. You were there two days ago, I believe. But that has nothing to do with this matter. When you heard that Reynolds was dead and Avery under suspicion you answered your sister’s summons and hurried to Torrenceville.”
“I was in Louisville; I was in Louisville, I tell you!” Tate uttered the words in convulsive gasps. He brushed the perspiration from his forehead impatiently and half rose.
“Please sit down, Mr. Tate. You had had trouble a little while before that with Reynolds about some stock in a creamery concern in your county that he promoted. You thought he had tricked you, and very possibly he had. The creamery business had resulted in a bitter hostility between you: it had gone to such an extent that he had refused to see you again to discuss the matter. You brooded over that until you were not quite sane where Reynolds was concerned: I’ll give you the benefit of that. You asked your brother-in-law to tell you when Reynolds was going to see him, and he obligingly consented. We will assume that Avery, a good fellow and anxious to aid you, made a meeting possible. Reynolds wasn’t to know that you were to be at the bungalow—he wouldn’t have gone if he had known it—and Avery risked the success of his own negotiations by introducing you into his house, out of sheer good will and friendship. You sat at a table in the bungalow living-room and discussed the matter. Some of these things only I have guessed at; the rest of it——”
“It’s a lie; it’s all a damned lie! This was a scheme to get me here: you and Burgess have set this up on me! I tell you I wasn’t at the quarry; I never saw Reynolds there that night or any other time. My God, if I had been there,—if Avery could have put it on me, would he be doing time for it?”
“Not necessarily, Mr. Tate. Let us go back a little. It had been in your power once to do Avery a great favor, a very great favor. That’s true, isn’t it?”
Tate stared, clearly surprised, but his quivering lips framed no answer.
“You had known him from boyhood, and shortly after his marriage to your sister it had been in your power to do him a great favor; you had helped him out of a hole and saved the quarry for him. It cost me considerable money to find that out, Mr. Tate, and not a word of help have I had from Avery: be sure of that! He had been guilty of something just a little irregular—in fact, the forging of your name to a note—and you had dealt generously with him, out of your old-time friendship, we will say, or to spare your sister humiliation.”
“George was in a corner,” said Tate weakly but with manifest relief at the turn of the talk. “He squared it all long ago.”
“It’s natural, in fact, instinctive, for a man to protect himself, to exhaust all the possibilities of defense when the law lays it hand upon him. Avery did not do so, and his meek submission counted heavily against him. But let us consider that a little. You and Reynolds left the bungalow together, probably after the interview had added to your wrath against him, but you wished to renew the talk out of Avery’s hearing and volunteered to guide Reynolds to the station where the Chicago train was to stop for him. You didn’t go back, Mr. Tate——”
“Good God, I tell you I wasn’t there! I can prove that I was in Louisville; I tell you——”