“I dare say those possibilities were thrashed out at the time,” the governor replied; “but the only woman in this case is Avery’s wife, and she and Reynolds had never met. I have found nothing to sustain any suspicion that there was a woman in the case. Avery’s ostensible purpose in asking Reynolds to visit him at that out-of-the-way place was merely that they could discuss the combination of their quarry interests privately, and close to Avery’s plant. It seems that Avery had undertaken the organization of a big company to take over a number of quarries whose product was similar, and that he wished to confer secretly with Reynolds to secure his sanction to a selling agreement before the others he wanted to get into the combination heard of it. That, of course, is perfectly plausible; I could make a good argument justifying that. Reynolds, like many small capitalists in country towns, had a number of irons in the fire and had done some promoting on his own hook. All the financial genius and all the financial crookedness aren’t confined to Wall Street, though I forget that sometimes when I’m on the stump! I’m disposed to think from what I’ve learned of both of them that Avery wasn’t likely to put anything over on Reynolds, who was no child in business matters. And there was nothing to show that Avery had got him down there for any other purpose than to effect a merger of quarry interests for their mutual benefit.” “There probably were papers to substantiate that,” suggested Fullerton; “correspondence and that sort of thing.” “Certainly; I have gone into that,” the governor replied. “All the papers remain in the office of the prosecuting attorney, and I have examined them carefully. Now, if Avery had been able to throw suspicion on some one else you’d think he’d have done so. And if there had been a third person at the bungalow that night you’d imagine that Avery would have said so; it’s not in human nature for one man to take the blame for another’s crime, and yet we do hear of such things, and I have read novels and seen plays built upon that idea. But here is Avery with fifteen years more to serve, and, if he’s been bearing the burden and suffering the penalty of another’s sin, I must say that he’s taking it all in an amazing spirit of self-sacrifice.” “Of course,” said Fullerton, “Reynolds may have had an enemy who followed him there and lay in wait for him. Or Avery may have connived at the crime without being really the assailant. That is conceivable.” “We’ll change the subject for a moment,” said the governor, “and return to our muttons later.” He spoke in a low tone to Burgess, who looked at his watch and answered audibly: “We have half an hour more.” The governor nodded and, with a whimsical smile, began turning over the tablets.