CHAPTER XXIII CONFESSIONTHOUGH Campbell Crosby's face was white and set, it was with rage, not fear.
"How dare you!" he exclaimed, as he fairly glared at Fleming Stone. "It is impossible to ignore the fact that your dastardly accusations are directed toward me! And I would deny them, but for the fact that they are so ridiculously absurd as to need no denial! I am disinclined even to take up the subject with you. But I will tell you, what everyone else present knows, that my connection with this case in any way is an utter impossibility! The night it occurred I was in Philadelphia. I left White Birches at noon the day before my cousin disappeared, and I returned in the evening of the day after he disappeared."
"And you can give an account of yourself, Mr. Crosby, during that interval of a
