d across at me good-humouredly.

"How you keep it up I don't see," I said. "This one case has nearly
given me nervous prostration."

"Well, I don't often strike one as strenuous as this," and he settled
back comfortably. "As a matter of fact, I haven't had one for a long
time that even touches it. There is nothing really mysterious about
most crimes."

"This one is certainly mysterious enough," I remarked.

"What makes it mysterious," Godfrey explained, "is the apparent lack
of motive. As soon as one learns the motive for a crime, one learns
also who committed it. But where the motive can't be discovered, it
is mighty hard to make any progress."

"It isn't only lack of motive which makes it mysterious," I
commented; "it's everything about it. I can't understand either why
it was done or how it was done. When I get to thinking about it, I
feel as though I were wandering around and around in a maze, from
which I can never escape."

"Oh, yes, you'll escape, Lester," said Godfrey, quietly, "and that
before very long."

"If you have an explanation, Godfrey," I protested, "for heaven's
sake tell me! Don't keep me in the maze an instant longer than is
necessary. I've been thinking about it till my brain feels like a
snarl of tangled thread. Do you mean to say you know what it is all
about?"

"'Know' is perhaps a little strong. There isn't much in this world
that we really know. Suppose we say that I strongly suspect." He
paused a moment, his eyes on the ceiling. "You know you've accused me
of romancing sometimes, Lester--the other evening, for instance; yet
that romance has come true."

"I take it all back," I said, meekly.

"There's another thing these talks do," continued Godfrey, going off
rather at a tangent, "and that is to clarify my ideas. You don't know
how it helps me to state my case to you and to try to answer your
objections. Your being a lawyer makes you unusually quick to see
objections, and a lawyer is always harder to convince of a thing than
the ordinary man. You are accustomed to weighing evidence; and so I
never allow myself to be convinced of a theory until I have convinced
you. Not always, even then," he added, with a smile.

"Well, I'm glad I'm of some use," I said, "if it is only as a sort of
file for you to sharpen your wits on. So please go ahead and romance
some more. Tell me first how you and Simmonds came to be following
Armand."

"Simply because I had found out he wasn't Armand. Fe