"Yas, suh! You cain't catch me up no mo'. I saw Mistuh Woods at eight twenty-fahv exackly." I handed him a bill and went into the bar. Grogan, the old bartender was there alone. "Grogan, do you remember who was in the bar between seven-thirty and eight-thirty on the night of the Felderson murder?" "Only one or two of the gentlemen, sir. There was Mr. Farnsworth and Mr. Brown and I think Mr. Woods." "Are you sure Mr. Woods was in here?" "Well, no, sir, not exactly. I remember Mr. Farnsworth and Mr. Brown. There were probably some others. The reason I think Mr. Woods was here was because he called my attention to the fact a few nights after the murder. There were a few gentlemen in here and they were talking of Mr. Felderson's death. Mr. Woods said, in view of the fact that the murderer hadn't been found, almost any one might be accused. Some one asked him if he was worried--we all knew, sir, that Mr. Felderson and Mr. Woods were not very friendly--and Mr. Woods laughed and said that fortunately he had a perfect alibi and called my attention to the fact that he was in here at about the time the crime was committed." "And you're not sure that he was?" I asked. "Oh, his alibi is good of course, because he was around the club all that evening. I guess he was here and I don't remember it." I shook hands with him and left. Far out on the golf links the coroner was bending over, examining something on the ground. When I reached him he grabbed me by the sleeve and pointed to two barely discernible tracks paralleling each other for almost a hundred yards. Between them ran a shallow, jagged rut, where the spade of an aeroplane had dug up the turf. CHAPTER SIXTEEN THE MECHANICIAN "We've got it! We're on the trail at last!" I exclaimed. "I just found out at the club that Woods left his dinner hurriedly and was not seen again until twenty-five minutes past eight." "We've got to go slow," cautioned the coroner. "A man who is ingenious enough to devise this means of murdering a man won't be tripped up for lack of a perfect alibi." "I've found what that is too. He has the bartender at the club half believing that he was in the bar at the time the murder was committed." I told him briefly what I had discovered. "See!" the coroner pointed out. "If they bring him into court, the bartender won't be able to swear he wasn't in the bar and the short time that he was absent will convince the jury that Woods is telling the truth and that our theory is all bunk." "But we're not going to leave things as they stand, just when we are hot on the trail. What do we do now?" "I'm of the opinion that there is a short-cut to the solution of the whole affair. Woods must have had a mechanician with him on the night of the murder." "What makes you think that?" I asked rather impatiently.