“If the police succeed in finding Yoshida Ito they need look for no other passenger,” said Barclay grimly.
“You think so?” and the glance McLane shot at his companion was keen.
“Yes,” Barclay leaned forward in his earnestness. “The Japanese on entering the smoking car was attacked by Tilghman, that I’ll swear to——”
“You mentioned it in your deposition,” put in McLane dryly.
“Quite so,” composedly. “After the brief scuffle, during which the Japanese used jiu-jutsu and which, but for the interference of Dr. Shively and Professor Norcross, might have had fatal results for Tilghman, the latter, on recovering his breath, offered the Japanese an insult which he was not likely to forgive. The Japanese mind works quickly, and with them to plan is to accomplish.”
“It was a subtle brain that planned Tilghman’s murder,” agreed McLane. “But there are some points about Ito’s conduct which to me contradict the evidence.”
“A verdict of guilty was brought against him by the coroner’s inquest, was it not?” asked Barclay coldly.
“Yes.” McLane opened a desk drawer and took from it several papers and newspaper clippings, and consulted one of them as he continued: “The coroner, in summing up, asked: ‘On the evidence, are you satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that at noon on the day in question the Japanese, Yoshida Ito, was in company with the deceased?’ Apparently,” added McLane, before Barclay could interrupt, “the jury was satisfied that Ito was in Tilghman’s company, because a verdict of guilty was brought in. In other words, the alibi given by Ito could so easily have been cleverly manufactured that no faith was placed in it, and it turned the scales against the Japanese. In reality, they had not one ray of conclusive proof against him.”
“Oh, come!” exclaimed Barclay skeptically.
“I am willing to test my belief,” retorted McLane. “Take the alibi—it required a knowledge beforehand of the differences in central and eastern time to think up such an alibi; a knowledge that Atlanta goes by central time and the railroad trains running north from there use eastern time. It appears to me extremely doubtful if the Japanese, clever as his race is, could have worked out the alibi in so short a time. He was a stranger in a strange land.”