"Only vaguely. But you know his story. How he sat on the lawn bench and watched the lights go off and on! Good work, that! He himself turned them off and then escaped to the lawn, and cleverly sat there to see what occurred, instead of going home, and thereby being suspected." "And kept still when he found those two women were accused?" "Sure. He knew they'd get off all right, and if he expected to marry Mrs. Stannard, he couldn't let himself get into the game. So he made up his simple, clever yarn, and stuck to it. Yes, sir, Courtenay's your man!" "Wait, what about that conversation Mrs. Stannard overheard? She says her husband was talking to a woman." "She made that up. Probably she had a glimmer of suspicion toward Courtenay, and did anything she could to make it seem somebody else." "Then she hired this visionary, and that brought about the very revelation she didn't want!" "But she never dreamed it would do so. She had no faith in the thing, and thought it would merely divert suspicion to some unknown intruder. And so it would, if I hadn't pinned the Seeress down to a careful description. Then, the more Mrs. Stannard showed discomfiture the more I knew I was right." "I believe you, Bobsy. Now, how shall we go about proving it?" "It will prove itself. It's a case of murder will out. You'll see!" XIII An Alibi Needed Very discreetly Bobsy conducted his interview with Eugene Courtenay. The detective wanted to trap his man before he could realise any danger, so he called on him the morning after his talk with Steele. Courtenay was not a business man. He called himself a farmer, but his farming was of the fancy variety and was done almost entirely by expert gardeners. His place was not far from the Folly, and when Bobsy called, at about eleven o'clock, he was received courteously enough by the man he desired to see. "It's this way, Mr. Courtenay," said Bobsy, after a few preliminaries, "in the interests of law and justice, I want you to tell me a little more in detail the story you told at the inquest." "There are no further details than those I related, Mr. Roberts. What have you learned that makes you think my testimony of sudden importance?" Clearly, this was not a man to be easily hoodwinked. Bobsy felt his way. "Not of sudden importance. But all testimony is important, and sometimes by elaboration it becomes illuminative." "Good word, illuminative," remarked Courtenay. "But I cannot help to shed light for you, I fear. Just what do you want to know?" Here was an opening. Bobsy accepted it as such. "At what time did you leave the Stannard house that night?" "I don't know, really. One doesn't note hours when not on business matters. It must have been between eleven and half-past. That's as near as I can come to it. Why?" The last word was shot at him, and Bobsy almost jumped.