Had
Mr. Jeffrey's alibi been less complete he could not have stood up
against the suspicions which now ran riot. But there was no
possibility of shifting the actual crime back to him after the
testimony of so frank and trustworthy a man as Tallman. If the
stopping of Mrs. Jeffrey's watch fixed the moment of her death as
accurately as was supposed, - and I never heard the least doubt
thrown out in this regard, - he could not by any means of transit
then known in Washington have reached Waverley Avenue in time to
fire that shot. The gates of the cemetery were closed at sundown;
sundown took place that night at one minute past seven, and the
distance into town is considerable. His alibi could not be gainsaid.
So his name failed to be publicly broached in connection with the
shooting, though his influence over Miss Tuttle could not be
forgotten, suggesting to some that she had acted as his hand in the
deed which robbed him of an undesirable wife. But this I would not
believe. I preferred to accept the statement that she had stopped
short of the library door in her suspicious visit there, and that
the ribbon-tying, which went for so much, had been done at home.
That these facts, especially the latter, called for more than common
credulity, I was quite ready to acknowledge; and had her feeling for
Francis Jeffrey shown less unselfishness, I should certainly have
joined my fellows in regarding these assertions as very lame attempts
to explain what could only be explained by a confession of guilt.
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