Thus far Littell's reasoning had been similar to my own, only, as I had to confess, clearer and more direct. I wished now to lead him a step further and confront him with the dilemma that had met me when I learned that White himself had worn the coat out that night after we left him. So I told him that within less than half an hour after we parted with him White had left the house wearing the ulster. "How do you know that?" he asked. "Because," I answered, "the night-officer saw him." "Well," Littell said, "that is a curious coincidence, I admit, but it does not interfere at all with our theory. If he did leave the house," he continued, reasoning apparently as much to himself as to me, "he certainly returned, because he was murdered there, and upon returning he removed the ulster and lay down again and the original conditions were restored. I do not see that it alters the situation, except that it drops the curtain a little later." "Then," I said, "you adhere to the theory that the murderer took the ulster?" "Yes, I see no other solution," he replied. I reflected that if Littell's reasoning were correct, then Winters, or whomever the man may have been that the night-officer had seen coming out of the vestibule of White's house, had not been the murderer, and I determined to see what view Littell would take of it. I, therefore, related this incident to him and continued: "This man, it is thought by the police, was concerned in the murder, but he did not have the ulster with him when he left the house." Littell looked puzzled for a minute and then answered: "I adhere to my opinion just the same; if that man did not have the ulster, he was not the murderer. His presence on the scene that night very likely had no connection with the crime." "But," I insisted, "your reasoning is all premised upon the assumption that White must have worn the ulster when he returned, for otherwise there would be no necessity for accounting for its disappearance. Is it not possible on the contrary that he left it somewhere and returned without it?" "No," he said, "not on such a wet night and in evening dress." "I admit its improbability," I acknowledged, "but is it not possible, nevertheless?" "Not sufficiently so to be taken into account," he replied. "Most things are possible, but if we stop to consider all the possibilities in a case, we will have no time for the real facts and will arrive nowhere and accomplish nothing. Take my word for it, Dick! the man who committed the murder took the ulster." This was my opinion, too, and as we had reached the club no more was said.