things.

"First:

"That he can no more account for the hours between half-past eleven on
Tuesday morning and five o'clock on the following Wednesday morning than
his brother can. In one breath he declares that he was shut up in his
rooms at the hotel, for which no corroborative evidence is forthcoming;
and in another that he was on a tramp after his brother, which seems
equally improbable and incapable of proof.

"Second:

"That he and not Howard was the man in a linen duster, and that he and
not Howard was in possession of the keys that night. As these are
serious statements to make, I will give you my reasons for them. They
are distinct from the recognition of his person by the inmates of the
Hotel D----, and added to that recognition, form a strong case against
him. The janitor who has charge of the offices in Duane Street,
happening to have a leisure moment on the morning of the day on which
Mrs. Van Burnam was murdered, was making the most of it by watching the
unloading of a huge boiler some four doors below the Van Burnam
warehouse. He was consequently looking intently in that direction when
Howard passed him, coming from the interview with his brother in which
he had been given the keys. Mr. Van Burnam was walking briskly, but
finding the sidewalk blocked by the boiler to which I have alluded,
paused for a moment to let it pass, and being greatly heated, took out
his handkerchief to wipe his forehead. This done, he moved on, just as a
man dressed in a long duster came up behind him, stopping where he
stopped and picking up from the ground something which the first
gentleman had evidently dropped. This last man's figure looked more or
less familiar to the janitor, so did the duster, and later he discovered
that the latter was the one which he had seen hanging for so long a time
in the little disused closet under the warehouse stairs. Its wearer was
Franklin Van Burnam, who, as I took pains to learn, had left the office
immediately in the wake of his brother, and the object he picked up was
the bunch of keys which the latter had inadvertently dropped. He may
have thought he lost them later, but it was then and there they slipped
from his pocket. I will here add that the duster found by the hackman in
his coach has been identified as the one missing from the closet just
mentioned.

"Third:

"The keys with which Mr. Van Burnam's house was unlocked were found
hanging in their usual place by noon of the next d