“I was thinking particularly of Mr. Drukker.”
“Oh, Drukker?” Pardee shook his head with mild emphasis. “No, I would have remembered him. But you realize a dozen people might have entered and left this house without my noticing them.”
“Quite—quite,” Vance murmured indifferently. “How good a chess player, by the by, is Mr. Drukker?”
Pardee showed a flicker of surprise.
“He’s not a player in the practical sense at all,” he explained with careful precision. “He’s an excellent analyst, however, and understands the theory of the game amazingly well. But he’s had little practice at actual over-the-board play.”
When Pardee had gone Heath cocked a triumphant eye at Vance.
“I notice, sir,” he remarked good-naturedly, “that I’m not the only one who’d like to check the hunchback’s alibi.”
“Ah, but there’s a difference between checking an alibi, and demanding that the person himself prove it.”
At this moment the front door was thrown open. There were heavy footsteps in the hall, and three men appeared in the archway. Two were obviously detectives, and between them stood a tall, clean-cut youth of about thirty.
“We got him, Sergeant,” announced one of the detectives, with a grin of vicious satisfaction. “He beat it straight home from here, and was packing up when we walked in on him.”