you or anybody else. All they wanted was a murderer--the most
improbable would have served. But your alibi was too
confoundedly complete. And nothing you've told me has shaken
it." Denver laid his cool hand over the other's burning fingers.
"Look here, old fellow, go home and work up a better case--then
come in and submit it to the Investigator."



IV


The perspiration was rolling off Granice's forehead. Every few
minutes he had to draw out his handkerchief and wipe the moisture
from his haggard face.

For an hour and a half he had been talking steadily, putting his
case to the District Attorney. Luckily he had a speaking
acquaintance with Allonby, and had obtained, without much
difficulty, a private audience on the very day after his talk
with Robert Denver. In the interval between he had hurried home,
got out of his evening clothes, and gone forth again at once into
the dreary dawn. His fear of Ascham and the alienist made it
impossible for him to remain in his rooms. And it seemed to him
that the only way of averting that hideous peril was by
establishing, in some sane impartial mind, the proof of his
guilt. Even if he had not been so incurably sick of life, the
electric chair seemed now the only alternative to the strait-
jacket.