"No, sir."
"Didn't think of it, I suppose, in the excitement?"
"No, sir."
"But just the same, you had another straw hat when you went down through the woods there. Where did you get that one?"
And Clyde, trapped and puzzled by this, pausing for the fraction of a second, frightened and wondering whether or not it could be proved that this second straw hat he was wearing was the one he had worn through the woods. Also whether the one on the water had been purchased in Utica, as it had. And then deciding to lie. "But I didn't have another straw hat." Without paying any attention to that, Mason reached over and took the straw hat on Clyde's head and proceeded to examine the lining with its imprint—Stark & Company, Lycurgus.
"This one has a lining, I see. Bought this in Lycurgus, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
"When?"
"Oh, back in June."
"But still you're sure now it's not the one you wore down through the woods that night?"