"You are wrong," I said quietly.
"That's your opinion!" he blurted out.
"That's my opinion. And if I'm right, if those two were murdered, and if the murderer or murderers can be found, won't Miss Callender feel she may safely marry a man she loves without delivering him up to danger?"
"Yes," Odell admitted. "Great Heaven, if you were right!"
"Supposing I am, and can prove it?"
"There's nothing on God's earth I wouldn't do for you."
"Well," I said, "I believe there's something in that opinion of mine. Don't dream that now I am getting at this truth I would bury it even if you did worse than crush my play. I'll go on, anyhow, but——"
"You say you are getting at the truth," he broke in. "What do you think—what do you know? But how can you, a stranger, know anything?"
"A stranger to you and those connected with the case, but not to the case itself. You may thank that despised detective instinct of mine for my keen interest in its details."
"If you thought you'd unearthed the clue to a mystery, why didn't you advertise yourself by pointing it out to the police a year and a half ago?"