secondary mind, Captain? This is clear evidence of it; and it will be no small help, I can tell you, in tracing the culprit, although I've known from the first that no ordinary mentality was back of this series of crimes, in spite of the strange element of carelessness which enters into each episode of it. The first instinct of the ordinary criminal would have been to secrete these tools in as out-of-the-way a place as their size would permit; but if he were a degree higher in intelligence he would realize that such a spot would be the first in which they would be searched for, and the next step in his reasoning would be that if they were left in plain view with others of their kind which were in occasional legitimate use in the household they would be overlooked."
"Sure; that's what I said." The chief moved impatiently in his chair. "They are what you were after, all right. Kelly asked Peters last night if there were any electrical carpentering tools in the house or a big saw, and he says that the butler's surprise looked like the real thing to him. Peters told him they'd never had any use for a big saw, and he had apparently never heard of electrical tools."
Odell laid the file and saw back on the table.
"It is too bad they have been handled so much," he remarked. "Your finger-prints and mine and two or three more are all superimposed on them."
"That doesn't matter," the chief grunted. "Look at your hands."
"Phew! Oil, eh?" Odell pulled a grimy handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his fingers. "I commandeered this from the garage man; those rascals up there stripped me clean. Did Kelly upset an oil-can in the tool-chest?"
