"
He relapsed again into silence. Plainly, he had received some new blow
during my absence.
"After all," I began, "you know we've only to prove an alibi to knock
to pieces this whole house of cards."
"Yes, that's all," he agreed. "But suppose we can't do it, Lester?"
"Can't do it?" I faltered. "Do you mean----?"
"I mean that Miss Holladay positively refuses to say where she spent
yesterday afternoon."
"Does she understand the--the necessity?" I asked.
"I pointed it out to her as clearly as I could. I'm all at sea,
Lester."
Well, if even he were beginning to doubt, matters were indeed serious!
"It's incomprehensible!" I sighed, after a moment's confused thought.
"It's----"
"Yes--past believing."
"But the coachman----"
"The coachman's evidence, I fear, won't help us much--rather the
reverse."
I actually gasped for breath--I felt like a drowning man from whose
grasp the saving rope had suddenly, unaccountably, been snatched.
"In that case----" I began, and stopped.
"Well, in that case?"
"We must find some other way out," I concluded lamely.
"_Is_ there another way, Lester?" he demanded, wheeling round upon me
fiercely. "_Is_ there another way? If there is, I wish to God you'd
show it to me!"
"There must be!" I protested desperately, striving to convince myself.
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