"In the billiard-room of this house!"

"Ah. And had he just come in?"

"Been there all of an hour!"

"Ah. It is about--about--well, about how far might it be to the scene of
the explosions"

"All of a mile!"

"Ah. It isn't much of an alibi, 'tis true, but--"

A storm-burst of laughter, mingled with shouts of "By jiminy, but he's
chain-lightning!" and "Ain't you sorry you spoke, Sandy?" shut off the
rest of the sentence, and the crushed witness drooped his blushing face
in pathetic shame. The inquisitor resumed:

"The lad Jones's somewhat distant connection with the case" (laughter)
"having been disposed of, let us now call the eye-witnesses of the
tragedy, and listen to what they have to say."

He got out his fragmentary clues and arranged them on a sheet of
cardboard on his knee. The house held its breath and watched.

"We have the longitude and the latitude, corrected for magnetic
variation, and this gives us the exact location of the tragedy. We have
the altitude, the temperature, and the degree of humidity prevailing
--inestimably valuable, since they enable us to estimate with precision