“I then pretended I wanted one,” Nick went on, smiling. “That caught him again. He had none, but quickly claimed that he had lit his last one and threw away the box. A cigarette smoker always retains the box until he[Pg 16] lights his last one. Look around. Toulon could not have thrown a small pasteboard box so far that, if it were out here, we could not see it.”
“Surely not,” Chick agreed. “Naturally, Nick, he would merely have tossed it upon the ground.”
“Certainly. But it is not here, nor does the ground show any signs of a struggle.”
“None whatever.”
“He said he was assaulted from behind, but he displayed a bruise on his forehead, said to have been inflicted with a sand bag,” Nick added derisively. “He should have been bruised on the back of his head, if attacked from behind.”
“That’s right, too.”
“And when I suggested finding on his neck the finger prints of the crook, you saw how quickly he objected and claimed to have been rubbing his neck.”
“True again, Nick, and very significant,” Chick nodded.
“Plainly enough, Chick, all of his story and the evidence we found were cut and dried, fixed for him to cover his tracks,” said Nick. “But the rascal overleaped his mount.”
“He did, indeed, no mistake.”