“Well, I won’t press the point,” I said brusquely.

“Then try this one: He was walking toward a town rather than away from one.”

I nodded. “It is more likely, I suppose. If he were in a town, he could probably arrange for some sort of transportation. Is that the basis for your inference?”

“Partly that,” said Nicky, “but there is also an inference to be drawn from the distance. Remember, it’s a nine-mile walk and nine is one of the exact numbers.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

That exasperated schoolteacher look appeared on Nicky’s face again. “Suppose you say, ‘I took a ten-mile walk’ or ‘a hundred-mile drive’; I would assume that you actually walked anywhere from eight to a dozen miles, or that you rode between ninety and a hundred and ten miles. In other words, ten and hundred are round numbers. You might have walked exactly ten miles, or just as likely you might have walked approximately ten miles. But when you speak of walking nine miles, I have a right to assume that you have named an exact figure. Now, we are far more likely to know the distance of the city from a given point than we are to know the distance of a given point from the city. That is, ask anyone in the city how far out Farmer Brown lives, and if he knows him, he will say, ‘Three or four miles.’ But ask Farmer Brown how far he lives from the city and he will tell you, ‘Three and six-tenths miles — measured it on my speedometer many a time.’”

“It’s weak, Nicky,” I said.

“But in conjunction with your own suggestion that he could have arranged transportation if he had been in a city —”

“Yes, that would do it,” I said. “I’ll pass it. Any more?”

“I’ve just begun to hit my stride,” he boasted. “My next inference is that he was going to a definite destination and that he had to be there at a particular time. It was not a case of going off to get help because his car broke down or his wife was going to have a baby or somebody was trying to break into his house.”