as long as me and her knowed I didn't do
nothing wrong, I'd oughta come forward and tell what I knowed."

"Yes, yes!" Sanderson encouraged him impatiently. "You say you worked
for Mrs. Selim as gardener one day a week--"

"Yes, sir, but I 'tended to her hot water and her garbage, too--twice a
day it was I had to go and stoke the little laundry heater that heats
the hot water tank in summertime when the steam furnace ain't being
used. I live about a mile beyant the Crain place, that is, the house the
poor lady was killed in--"

"Did you come to stoke the laundry heater Saturday evening?" Dundee
interrupted. "Excuse me, sir," he turned to the district attorney, "but
this is the first time I've seen this man."

"No, sir, I didn't stoke it Sat'dy night," Rawlins answered uneasily.
"You see, I was comin' up the road to do my chores at half past six,
like I always do, but before I got to the house I seen a lot of
policemen's cars and motorcycles, and I didn't want to get mixed up in
nothing, so I turned around and went home again. I didn't know what was
up, but when me and the wife went into Hamilton Sat'dy night in our
flivver we seen one of the extries and read about how the poor lady was
murdered. But that ain't what I was gittin' at, sir--"

"Well, what _are_ you getting at?" Sanderson urged.

"Well, the extry said the police had found some footprints under the
frontmost of them two side windows to Mis' Selim's bedroom, and went on
to talk about the rose vines being tore, and straight off I said to the
missus, 'Them's _my_ footprints, Minnie'--Minnie's my wife's name--"

"_Your_ footprints!" Sanderson ejaculated, then shook with silent
laughter. "There goes Strawn's case, Bonnie!" But immediately he was
serious again, as the import of this new evidence came to him. "Tell us
all about it, Rawlins.... When did you make those footprints?"

"Friday, sir. That's the day I gardened for Mis' Selim.... You see, sir,
the poor little lady told me she was kept awake nights when they was a
high wind, by the rose vines tapping against the windows. Says she, 'I
think they's somebody tryin' to git into my room, Elmer,' and I could
see the poor little thing was mighty nervous anyway, so I didn't waste
no time. I cut away a lot of the rose vine and burned it when I was
burnin' the garbage and papers in the 'cinerator out back."

"Is that all, Rawlins?" Sanderson asked.

"'Bout all that 'mounts to anything," the laborer deprecat