“Beg pardon, Sir Harry,” said Drayton, with some confusion, “but I found out two or three days ago, in consequence of certain private inquiries made by me, that what Mr. Bristow says about Mrs. Potts and the clock is quite true. According to that clock, Mr. Bristow, on the night of the escape, was at home at eleven to the minute.”
“What on earth do you mean, Drayton?” said Sir Harry, growing very red in the face. “If you knew all this before, why let me send for Mr. Bristow? If what you say is true, there is no case whatever against this gentleman, and I can only apologize to him for having brought him here at all.”
Drayton turned very white, but he was a man not easily put down. “Such things have been known,” he said, “as clock fingers being put either backward or forward so as to suit people’s own convenience.”
“Drayton, you are a bigger fool than I took you to be,” said Sir Harry, irately, “and I never had a very high opinion of your brains.”
Drayton, metaphorically speaking, sank into his boots.
“As it happens,” said Tom, “I am in a position to offer you a still stronger confirmation of the impossibility of my having had anything to do with effecting the escape of Mr. Dering.”
“We shall be very happy, Mr. Bristow, to listen to anything you have to say,” said Sir Harry, politely.
“Then I must ask you, Sir Harry, to kindly answer me one or two questions,” said Tom.
“As many as you like, Mr. Bristow.”
“Were not you yourself in Duxley till rather a late hour on the night of the escape?”