“Perhaps! It certainly looks like it. But——”
“But what?”
“Well, there’s nothing to prove that the two people that have been here were here at the same time, is there? Of course, I’m willing to admit that in circumstances of this kind, the balance of probability is that they were. But one never knows. I wonder what Baddeley——”
“What do you really think about it?” I urged.
His answer amazed me rather.
“Too much!”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I say. I am actually thinking too much about a number of points. There are too many clues here, Bill, falling over one another. No wonder Baddeley’s mystified. My job is to separate the true significances from the false. That’s real detective talent, Bill. In this case, there is so much that conflicts. One set of facts, for example, points to the North, and another set, apparently just as authentic, points unerringly to the South. Therefore, they can’t, all of them, be authentic! See? Some must be false. And I’ve got to pick ’em out.” He slapped me on the back. “Magna est veritas”—he stopped abruptly.
“Now what?”
“By Jove!” he murmured. And an illuminating smile spread across his features. “Of course. Of course.”