"Impossible!" snapped the district attorney. "I don't see how it could be hung on him."
"Won't you even have his presence there investigated?" Why, Bill was actually pleading. The district attorney swelled his chest like a turkey cock. He would show Bill that he couldn't be bluffed. Not he.
"No, I won't have his presence at the Walton ranch investigated. In the first place——"
"In the first place," said Billy, "I know he didn't kill Tuckleton."
"Then why are you trying to prove he did?"
"Just to see what you'd say. Just to see how dead set against investigating Slike you are. Just to double-cinch the proof against the real criminal. You know that Dan Slike didn't kill Tuckleton, but that isn't why you don't dare read his trail too much. One reason is that if you do, he'll be sure to blat right out how you and Felix and Sam Larder helped him to escape from the calaboose. Don't blush, Arthur. I know how modest you are. So we'll take it I'm right."
"Oh, you're welcome to what you think," said the district attorney. "But just for the sake of argument, how do you know that Slike didn't kill Tuckleton?"
"Because the initialed butcher knife Slike took with him from Miss Walton's was still on him when he was caught."
"There must have been two knives!"
"There were two knives, but only one belonged to Miss Walton. Rale, when you and Felix and Larder caught Red Herring in the draw a few minutes before you found the dead body of Tuckleton, why didn't you ask more questions about Red being there so handy?"