“In God’s name,” gasped the Judge, startled out of his judicial composure, “what are you saying, Link? What motive could he have—” “The best motive in the world, I claim,” said Mr. Link emphatically. “Insanity!” “Don’t you know that insanity is not a motive?” snapped the Judge. “As for Pete Hines saying he heard Oliver and his father quarreling that night,” said Mrs. Grimes, who had been silent for a long time, “I wouldn’t believe him on oath. If I was to meet him on the street and he was to say it was a nice, bright, sunshiny day, I’d hurry home and take off my rain-soaked clothes.” “Help yourself to another cigar, Judge,” said Oliver from the sofa. “Any objections, ladies?” In turn, each lady shook her head. “I was about to say, my friends” (with a fixed stare at Mr. Link), “that in case the grand jury finds a true bill against Oliver, I consider myself, as his counsel, quite capable of deciding what kind of a defense we shall put up—and it will not be insanity, Silas Link.” “Well, what _will_ it be?” demanded Mr. Link. “Patience,” returned Judge Shortridge. “That’s no defense,” protested the undertaker. “Whoever heard of a man being acquitted of murder on the grounds of patience?” “Will it make it any clearer to you if I state that all we have to do is to be patient while the State is trying to prove this absolutely unknown and absolutely unidentified carcass is that of Oliver Baxter? We’ll make ’em prove that it is his skeleton. We’ll make ’em prove to the day just how long it has been out there in the swamp. We’ll be able to prove that Oliver October had in the neighborhood of fifteen thousand dollars on deposit in a Chicago bank and that he spent a lot of it hunting for his father. And, as I said before, we’ll make ’em prove that Oliver Baxter is dead. They’ll have a hell of a time—er—a very difficult time proving that our old friend is dead. For all we know—or anybody else knows—that body may have been out there for ten or fifteen years. Doc Lansing here says it’s possible, and Doctor Robinson the same thing. They can’t, to save their lives, produce a medical expert who will swear positively it was out there only a year and four months. Isn’t that a fact, Doc?” “Yes,” replied young Lansing. “The processes of disintegration are so—” “And this skeleton is said to be that of a fairly tall man,” said Mr. Sage, “whereas I should unhesitatingly say that Brother Baxter was not more than five feet six.” “We must not overlook the fact,” said Lansing, pursing his lips, “that old age may have caused Mr. Baxter’s frame to shrink somewhat from its original stature—er—ah—we all know that he was considerably bent and shriveled and that he was decidedly—er—bow-legged. Now the bone structure of a human being more or less assumes deceptive proportions after—er—the confining tissue, the cartilages and so forth have—ah—we will say disintegrated—permitting the—”