"Gee! If all you local police has concentrated your thinkers on that all this time, and hasn't doped it out yet, I can't put it over all at once! But Mr. Stone, he'll yank the heart out o' the mystery, you can just bet. Of course, 'How'd the murderer get out?' is easy enough to sit around an' say--like a flock of parrots! The thing to do is to find out how he _did_ get out!"
Fibsy stood, hands in pockets, in front of the mantel, looking down at the floor.
"Here's where she was lyin'?" he asked gravely, and Iris nodded her head.
Leaning down, Fibsy looked up the chimney, and Hughes laughed out.
"Back number!" he said, looking bored, "Don't you s'pose we've investigated that chimney business? A monkey couldn't get up that little flue, let alone an able-bodied man!"
"That's so, my bucko!" and Fibsy beamed on Hughes, without a trace of rancor at the elder man's scorn.
"Now about the evidence against Mr. Bannard," Stone said to the local detective, "do I understand it's only the newspaper and cigarette that he was supposed to have left in this room----"
"Well," Hughes defended himself, "he had motive, he was seen around these parts, and he denies he was up here----"
"Never mind, I'll talk with him, please. I'll learn more from his own story."
"He isn't guilty, oh, Mr. Stone, he _isn't_ guilty!" Iris exclaimed, her beautiful eyes filling with tears. "Please get him out of that awful jail, can't you?"
"Let us hope so, Miss Clyde." Stone spoke abstractedly. "Where is the newspaper in question?"
"Here it is," and Iris took it from a drawer and handed it to him.
"Why, this has never been opened," exclaimed Stone.
"No," agreed Hughes, "when Bannard came up here Sunday morning on his bicycle, he had no thought for the day's news! He had other plans ahead. He carried that paper up here without reading it, and he left it here, also unopened."
"Might 'a' been opened an' folded up again," offered Fibsy. "It has, too."
"I did that," said Hughes, importantly. "I opened it, the first time I saw it, naturally one would, and I refolded it exactly as it was. It's of no further value as evidence, but I made sure it hadn't been read. You can always tell if a paper's been read or not."
"Sure you can," agreed Fibsy. "Where's this Mr. Bannard live?"