"I've heard about half a dozen and gone into them all, and there's nothing in one of them."
"Half a dozen stories?" Bisset's eye began to look hopeful again. "Well, sir, perhaps if I was to go into some of them again in the light of my fresh datas, they might wear, as it were, a different aspect."
"Well," said Ned. "What have you found? Have a cigar and let's hear what you've been at."
The expert crackled the cigar approvingly between his fingers, lit it with increased approval, and began:
"Yon man was behind the curtains all the time."
"The devil he was! How do you know?"
"Well, sir, it's a matter of deduction. Ye see supposing he came in by the door, there are objections, and supposing he came in by the windie there are objections. Either way there are objections which make it difficult for to accept those theories. And then it struck me—the man must have been behind the curtains all the while!"
"He must have come either by the door or window to get there."
"That's true, Mr. Cromarty. But such minor points we can consider in a wee while, when we have seen how everything is otherwise explained. Now supposing we have the murderer behind the curtains; that brings him within six feet of where the wee table was standing. How did he get Sir Reginald to come to the table? He made some kind of sound. What kind of sound? Some
