"It does me good to come in here occasionally and have a talk with you, Lester," he said, accepting the cigar I offered him. "I find it restful after a hard day," and he smiled 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.