you've won, and fairly won your place there. That's a big thing
and you didn't get it without some work and some luck, Brendon. But
now--this Redmayne racket. You were right on the spot, hit the trail
before it was cold, had everything to help you that heart of man
could wish for; yet a guy who had joined the force only a week
before could have done no worse. In a word, your conduct of the
affair don't square with your reputation. Your dope never cut any
ice from the start. And why? Because, without a doubt, you had a
theory and got lost in it."

"Don't think that. I never had a theory."

"Is that so? Then failure lies somewhere else. The hopeless way you
bitched up this thing interests me quite a lot. Remember that I know
the case inside out and I'm not talking through my hat. So now let's
see how and why you barked your shins so bad.

"Now, Mark, take a cinema show and consider it. Perhaps it's going
to throw some light for you. A cinema film presents two entirely
different achievements. It presents ten for that matter; but we'll
take just two. It shows you a white sheet with a light thrown on it;
it passes the light through a series of stains and shadows and the
stains are magnified by lenses before they reach the screen. A most
elaborate mechanism, you see, but the spectator never thinks about
all that, because the machine produces an appeal to another part of
his mind altogether. He forgets sheet, lantern, film, and all they
are doing, in the illusion which they create.

"We accept the convention of the moving picture, the light and
darkness, the tones and half tones, because these moving stains and
shadows take the shape of familiar objects and tell a coherent
story, showing life in action. But we know, subconsciously, all the
time that it is merely an imitation of reality, as in the case of a
picture, a novel, or a stage play. Certain ingenious applications of
science and art combined have created the appearance of truth and
told a story. Well, in the Redmayne case, certain ingenious
operations have combined to tell you a story; and you have found
yourself so interested in the yarn that you have quite overlooked
the mechanism. But the mechanism should have been the first
consideration, and the conjurers, by distracting your attention from
it, did just what they were out to do. Let us take a look at the
mechanism, my son, and see where the archcrooks behind this thing
bluffed you."

Brendon did not hide hi