“Yes,” said Billy. “Well, the play hinges upon the conspiracy of Brutus and Cassius--a conspiracy carried out on the Ides of March. Look!” He moved the paper to expose another line: _Remember March, the Ides of March remember!_ “Not till then did I remember that the sixteenth of March, the day on which Jeff disappeared, was--not indeed the Ides of March, the fifteenth, but devilish close to it, close enough. So what he says is: ‘George, remember--think carefully--remember exactly what took place the day you saw me last.’ “He left my rooms just before midnight. And at midnight exactly, as sworn to by many people, at a spot about a mile from here--at a spot which Jeff might have reached at just that time--something happened: a street fight in which two men were killed, and the survivor, Captain Charles Tillotson, was wounded. Have you, by any chance, read the evidence in the Tillotson case?” “Every word of it,” said Billy. “We read the full account of the trial at Escondido yesterday, while we were waiting for the train.” “Good! Good! That simplifies matters. Think closely--keep in your minds the evidence given at that trial--while I follow Jeff up after he left my door. He must have gone somewhere, you know--and he said he was going home. He usually took the car, but I have already told you that he didn’t that night. “Now, my rooms are two blocks north of the street-car line; Jeff’s were three blocks south, and a long way up toward town. The corner of Colorado and Franklin, where the fight took place, was on one of the several routes he might have taken. And, if he had chosen that particular way, he would have reached the scene of the shooting precisely in time to get mixed up in it. I ought, by all means, to have thought of that before, but I didn’t--till my wits were sharpened trying to make out Jeff’s letter. “Tillotson, you remember, claims that Krouse shot him without cause or warning; that he, himself, only fired in self-defense; that a fourth man killed Broderick--a fourth man who mysteriously disappeared, as Jeff did. “Thorpe and Patterson, on the contrary, swore that Tillotson made the attack, not upon Krouse but upon Broderick. Few have ever doubted that evidence, because it was not likely that a man of Broderick’s known and deadly quickness could be shot twice without firing a shot himself, except by a man who took him by surprise. “But, if Tillotson tells the truth, Thorpe and Patterson lied; and there is a conspiracy for you. And if Tillotson tells the truth, a fourth man did kill Broderick--who more likely than Jeff Bransford, who disappeared, due at that time and place?” “You mean, possibly due at that time and place,” interrupted Billy. “And how do you account for Jeff’s taking Broderick at a disadvantage? It seems to me you are giving him a poor character.”