"And killed himself?" Vantine completed.
I hesitated. I was astonished to find, at the back of my mind, a growing doubt.
"See here, Lester," Vantine demanded, "if he didn't kill himself, what happened to him?"
"Heaven only knows," I answered, in despair. "I've been asking myself the same question, without finding a reasonable answer to it. As I said to Goldberger, it's a blank wall. But if anybody can see through it, Jim Godfrey can."
Vantine seemed deeply perturbed. He took a turn or two up and down the room, then stopped in front of me and looked me earnestly in the eye.
"Tell me, Lester," he said, "do you believe that theory of Godfrey's —that that insignificant wound on the hand caused death?"
"It seems absurd, doesn't it? But Godfrey is a sort of genius at divining such things."
"Then you do believe it?"
I asked myself the same question before I answered.
"Yes, I do," I said, finally.