Early one morning he had entered a tobacconist’s shop where he was not known and investigated the man’s stock of cigars. He found it difficult to make up his mind as to which of three different brands would suit him best. He took away with him a specimen of each, and said that he would try them after luncheon and let the tobacconist know. At three that afternoon Dr Alden’s man called at the tobacconist’s with a note from the doctor saying that the trial had been made and naming the brand selected. Five hundred of this brand were ordered, and a cheque for the exact sum was enclosed in payment. The tobacconist was to deliver the goods to the bearer of the note, as the doctor was leaving for the country at four and wished to take some of the cigars with him. This was done, and probably the tobacconist would have been willing to swear in consequence that Dr Alden was in London until four that day. As a matter of fact, the doctor had left for the North by express shortly after ten that morning. ‘Yes,’ said the chairman, ‘you convinced that tobacconist that you were in London when you were not, just as Pusely-Smythe convinced his aunt that he was not in London when he was. In each case it is the evidence of one person only. Have you done any better, Mr Wildersley?’ ‘Better?’ said Wildersley cheerfully. ‘I should rather think I have. I should have made out the club cheque for the prize to my own order already but for the fact that I prefer the formal routine. Cast your chairmaniacal eye over this sketch-book. It is filled with pencil drawings made from time to time, if not oftener, by the eminent Wildersley. The last few pages were made at the political meeting at Glasgow last week. They are dated in my own hand. There are notes as to the colour also in my hand. They are in my sketch-book. If they are not proof positive that I was at that meeting, then what are they? All the same I was in London while that meeting was being held, and can produce countless witnesses who saw me and spoke to me.’ The chairman looked carefully at the drawings. ‘Not done from photographs, I suppose?’ ‘No, m’lord,’ said Wildersley. ‘All genuine hand-work and done on the spot.’ Lord Herngill compared them with previous drawings in the book. ‘These look to me,’ he said, ‘as if they were done by somebody who was trying to imitate your technique but had not quite got it.’ ‘Yes,’ said Wildersley, ‘that finishes us. You have it. The other artist member and I went into collaboration in this enterprise. Austin went to Glasgow, and made the sketches in the book with what he was pleased to call an imitation of the worst of the Wildersleian mannerisms. I remained in London giving my famous impersonation of myself. I added the date and manuscript notes afterwards. Still, if this book fell into the hands of somebody who had not the full use of his eyes—and very few people have—he might use it as evidence in good faith that I was at Glasgow at that date.’