The superintendent nodded.  “What is your inference?” he asked.

“Only what I say; that the man knew his business.  He is no ordinary hobo; he is more likely in your class, or mine.”

Lidgerwood ground his heel into the gravel, and with the feeling that he was wasting precious time of Dawson’s which should go into the track-clearing, asked another question.

“Fred, tell me; you’ve known John Judson longer than I have:  do you trust him—­when he’s sober?”

“Yes.”  The answer was unqualified.

“I think I do, but he talks too much.  He is over here, somewhere, to-night, shadowing the man who may have done this.  He—­and the man—­came down on 205 this evening.  I saw them both board the train at Angels as it was pulling out.”

Dawson looked up quickly, and for once the reticence which was his customary shield was dropped.

“You’re trusting me, now, Mr. Lidgerwood:  who was the man?  Gridley?”

“Gridley?  No.  Why, Dawson, he is the last man I should suspect!”

“All right; if you think so.”

“Don’t you think so?”

It was the draftsman’s turn to hesitate.

“I’m prejudiced,” he confessed at length.  “I know Gridley; he is a worse man than a good many people think he is—­and not so bad as some others believe him to be.  If he thought you, or Benson, were getting in his way—­up at the house, you know——­”

Lidgerwood smiled.

“You don’t want him for a brother-in-law; is that it, Fred?”

“I’d cheerfully help to put my sister in her coffin, if that were the alternative,” said Dawson quite calmly.

“Well,” said the superintendent, “he can easily prove an alibi, so far as this wreck is concerned.  He went east on 202 yesterday.  You knew that, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I knew it, but——­”

“But what?”

“It doesn’t count,” said the draftsman, briefly.  Then:  “Who was the other man, the man who came west on 205?”

“I hate to say it, Fred, but it was Hallock.  We saw the wreck, all of us, from the back platform of my car.  Williams had just pulled us out on the old spur.  Just before Cranford shut off and jammed on his air-brakes, a man ran down the track, swinging his arms like a madman.  Of course, there wasn’t the time or any chance for me to identify him, and I saw him only for the second or two intervening, and with his back toward us.  But the back looked like Hallock’s; I’m afraid it was Hallock’s.”

“But why should he weaken at the last moment and try to stop the train?” queried Dawson.

“You forget that it was the special, and not the passenger, that was to be wrecked.”

“Sure,” said the draftsman.

“I’ve told you this, Fred, because, if the man we saw were Hallock, he’ll probably turn up while you are at work; Hallock, with Judson at his heels.  You’ll know what to do in that event?”

“I guess so:  keep a sharp eye on Hallock, and make Judson hold his tongue.  I’ll do both.”