So they had pinned that on him. But what was it? Nothing. His explanation was perfectly logical. There were half a dozen witnesses to vouch that he had been out to Hegewisch that Sunday, birding.
Horn stood up, crossed the room in the most casual way – oh what a cheap show they were putting up; wait till he imitated Horn for Artie! Horn took the glasses from the case, and put them in his breast pocket. “You carried them in your pocket like this?”
“Why, yes, that was where I would habitually carry them. I could have left them in the pocket of my jacket. I hadn’t worn the suit for some weeks. But – I believe it is this suit I have on now.”
Suddenly Horn performed a curious little shuffle with his feet, and half flopped over, like a vaudeville dancer in a buck-and-wing, nearly losing his balance. Startled, Padua and the others lunged to catch their chief. But Horn steadied himself, grasping the back of a chair. He straightened up. Then he touched his hand to his breast pocket. The glasses were still there, intact. “Would you like to show me, Judd, how you might have fallen, and the glasses dropped out? Especially since you have on the same suit.”
“Why, it seems to me that when I did use them habitually, they were always falling out of my pockets when I bent over.” Horn was holding out the spectacles. Judd slipped them into his coat pocket, smiling.
“How did they fall? Will you show us?”
“Well, I’m not much of an actor,” he said, chuckling.
“Just let’s see if they fall out.”
“Well, the terrain isn’t exactly the same, you know. I tripped, I think it was down an incline, down the overpass of the railway tracks there.”
“You do know the site quite well,” Padua remarked.
“Still,” Horn said, “let’s give it a try.”
With a slight frown at being put in a situation where he had to make a fool of himself, Judd made a few steps toward the centre of the room, and then fell forward, landing on his palms. As he straightened himself, he had difficulty concealing an angry sense of humiliation. But he made himself chuckle. “Of course when you try it never happens.”
They smiled with him.
Padua now came forward and arranged a little pile of stuff in the middle of the floor; there were a couple of telephone books, with a few smaller books on top.
“Do you want me to break my leg?” Judd said.
“I’ll risk mine first.” Padua reached out his hand for the spectacles, but then corrected himself, putting them aside, “Anybody got another pair? We might be needing these some day in court, who knows.”
The secretarial fellow, now introduced as Czewicki, also an assistant State’s Attorney, handed over his shell-rims. “Be careful. You want to leave me blind?”
“Don’t worry,” Horn said humourlessly. “The state will buy you another pair.”
Padua slipped Czewicki’s glasses into his pocket, walked back a few steps, then allowed himself, with a certain elegance, to trip over the phone books. Nothing happened. He offered the substitute glasses to Judd. “Want to try?”
Judd thought of protesting at this point. Still, this nonsense could turn in his favour. “I suppose I might stand on my head,” he joked. “That ought to do it.” Then he let himself trip over the books, pitching forward. At least, he wished that the bastard’s glasses would be smashed.
It became too stupid. Five, six times, he must have tried it. Horn was sitting there like a school teacher. Frowning, he rose and said, “I’ve got an idea. Would you mind taking off your coat?”
“Why, no,” said Judd, “I’m getting hot from all this exercise anyway.”
The State’s Attorney took Judd’s jacket and placed it on the floor. Then, as one absorbedly performing some abstract demonstration, he picked up the jacket by its bottom. The glasses slipped soundlessly from the pocket and lay on the carpet.
All looked at Horn as though he had performed a great feat.
“That’s how it might have happened, isn’t it?” said Horn, helpfully.
“Why, obviously,” said Judd, “glasses can fall out that way. But I don’t recall having my coat off that day.” Instantly he wanted to kick himself. He tried to backtrack. “But of course I might have.”
Padua was shaking his head, thoughtfully. “You wouldn’t pick up your coat that way.”
“Why?”
“You’re pretty careful about your clothes, Padua said. “I noticed it, because I’m the same way. But perhaps – in the dark-”
Judd stared back at the fellow, unblinkingly. Certainly, he told himself, he was superior in intelligence to this wop. He must simply be careful not to be tripped by his own over confidence. He must not try to prove them wrong on each remark, as he had done so far.
Receiving no reply, Padua resumed, “Another point confuses me. When you spoke to Captain Cleary last Saturday, the question of the glasses did come up.” So during the last hour, they must have been in touch with Cleary. They must now have the report he had written.
“Yes. I told him I used to wear glasses.”
“Then, surely when you got home you checked up?”
“No,” Judd said. And as they stared at him: “Perhaps that was when it crossed my mind, and I decided not to. As I said, I would have hated to see my family get involved over an unhappy coincidence of that kind.”
Padua took a long breath, and said, quietly, “As a matter of fact, you knew they were your glasses the whole time. You lied both to Captain Cleary and to us.”
“I resent that!” Judd snapped.
Horn looked toward Padua. There might have been a hint of disapproval in his expression.
With elaborate casualness, Padua said, “You’ve seen this ransom letter in the papers. What did you make of it?”
“Well, I didn’t study it very carefully.”
“Here.” Judd was handed the letter. He made himself read it over, word for word, so as not to seem familiar with it.
“Judd, what sort of man wrote that letter, do you think?”
“Well, obviously he is not uneducated. I would say at least a high-school graduate. There don’t appear to be any errors in grammar or spelling. Unless – the word kidnaped. It is spelled here with two p’s.”
“Isn’t that correct?”
“I think it would be the British way,” he said. “I believe we would use one p. But either could be called correct.” How he had argued with Artie about it! But now, Judd felt that making this point separated him from the letter. He replaced the letter on the desk.
After a short silence, Horn said, rather formally, “Suppose you tell us where you were on the afternoon and evening of May 22.”
“May 22?” Now, this would be the last round. “Oh, the day of-”
“Yes.”
“Well, offhand, I suppose it was a day like any other day. I went to my classes…” Now he was approaching the barrier. The alibi. The week that he and Artie had agreed upon for using the alibi was technically over. Today was Thursday. “May 22 – that was a Wednesday, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. A week ago yesterday.”
“I don’t recall any special activity on Wednesday.”
“But surely, only one week ago – you’ve got a pretty good memory about almost tripping out there in Hegewisch a few days before that.”
“Well, I had my Harvard exam on Friday morning, so I was pretty busy studying.”
“Friday morning – you took an exam?”
“For Harvard Law,” he said modestly.
“How’d you make out? Was it tough?” asked Czewicki.
“Of course it was only an entrance exam, and I boned up pretty well.”
“A Phi Bete would have no trouble,” Padua said.
“That’s a great school,” Czewicki said. “You’ll probably come back here and beat the pants off us.”
Horn brought them back to the topic. “What time did you leave the university? On Wednesday.”
“About noon.”
And where had he lunched? At home?