“Nowhere.  I’ve suspected Florence Lloyd and Gregory Hall, in turn, and in collusion; but now I suspect neither of them.”

“Why not Hall?”

“His manner is too frank and unconcerned.”

“A good bluff for a criminal to use.”

“Then he won’t tell where he was that night.”

“If he is the murderer, he can’t tell.  A false alibi is so easily riddled.  It’s rather clever to keep doggedly silent; but what does he say is his reason?”

“He won’t give any reason.  He has determined to keep up that calm, indifferent pose, and though it is aggravating, I must admit it serves his purpose well.”

“How did they find him the morning after the murder?”

“Let me see; I believe the coroner said he telephoned first to Hall’s club.  But the steward said Hall didn’t stay there, as there was no vacant room, and that he had stayed all night at a hotel.”

“What hotel?”

“I don’t know.  The coroner asked the steward, but he didn’t know.”

“Didn’t he find out from Hall, afterward?”

“I don’t know, Stone; perhaps the coroner asked him, but if he did, I doubt if Hall told.  It didn’t seem to me important.”

“Burroughs, my son, you should have learned every detail of Hall’s doings that night.”

“But if he were not in West Sedgwick, what difference could it possibly make where he was?”

“One never knows what difference anything will make until the difference is made.  That’s oracular, but it means more than it sounds.  However, go on.”

I went on, and I even told him what Florence had told me concerning the possibility of Hall’s interest in another woman.

“At last we are getting to it,” said Stone; “why in the name of all good detectives, didn’t you hunt up that other woman?”

“But she is perhaps only a figment of Miss Lloyd’s brain.”

“Figments of the brains of engaged young ladies are apt to have a solid foundation of flesh and blood.  I think much could be learned concerning Mr. Hall’s straying fancy.  But tell me again about his attitude toward Miss Lloyd, in the successive developments of the will question.”

Fleming Stone was deeply interested as I rehearsed how, when Florence was supposed to be penniless, he wished to break the engagement.  When Philip Crawford offered to provide for her, Mr. Hall was uncertain; but when the will was found, and Florence was known to inherit all her uncle’s property, then Gregory Hall not only held her to the engagement, but said he had never wished to break it.

“H’m,” said Stone.  “Pretty clear that the young man is a fortune-hunter.”

“He is,” I agreed.  “I felt sure of that from the first.”

“And he is now under arrest, calmly waiting for some one to prove his innocence, so he can marry the heiress.”

“That’s about the size of it,” I said.  “But I don’t think Florence is quite as much in love with him as she was.  She seems to have realized his mercenary spirit.”