White's house, had not been the murderer, and I
determined to see what view Littell would take of it. I, therefore,
related this incident to him and continued:

"This man, it is thought by the police, was concerned in the murder, but
he did not have the ulster with him when he left the house."

Littell looked puzzled for a minute and then answered:

"I adhere to my opinion just the same; if that man did not have the
ulster, he was not the murderer. His presence on the scene that night
very likely had no connection with the crime."

"But," I insisted, "your reasoning is all premised upon the assumption
that White must have worn the ulster when he returned, for otherwise
there would be no necessity for accounting for its disappearance. Is it
not possible on the contrary that he left it somewhere and returned
without it?"

"No," he said, "not on such a wet night and in evening dress."

"I admit its improbability," I acknowledged, "but is it not possible,
nevertheless?"

"Not sufficiently so to be taken into account," he replied. "Most things
are possible, but if we stop to consider all the possibilities in a
case, we will have no time for the real facts and will arrive nowhere
and accomplish nothing. Take my word for it, Dick! the man who committed
the murder took the ulster."

This was my opinion, too, and as we had reached the club no more was
said.

On entering a servant told me that Mr. Van Bult was waiting for me in
the library; so we went there and found Van Bult seated in front of the
fire with an unopened paper in his hands gazing abstractedly before him.
We greeted him and then for some moments were silent. There was so much
to say and so little that seemed adequate. We four of all others were
most allied by friendship and intimacy with poor White and by the
incidents of that night with the tragedy of his death. All seemed too
oppressed with the memories of our last gathering to break the silence
and we stood waiting on one another for the first word. Several members
of the club in the meantime came to the door and looked in, but seeing
us four together turned back. At last Van Bult said:

"I suppose the papers have told me all you men know. I learned of it
first in Buffalo, and returned as soon as I could. I am sorry I went
away at all, but it was a matter of importance and I suppose I could
have been of no use here." He paused a moment, but none of us said
anything, and he went on: "So far as I can l