“Go ahead,” said Potter, agreeably. “I’ll be glad to see any man who can handle the thing. Why, there’s no handle to it. No place to catch hold. Here’s a man killed, and a girl missing. Now, we’ve no more idea what happened to those two people than we had at the moment of the discovery of the situation.”
“That’s perfectly true.”
“And what’s more, we never will have. That mystery will never be solved.”
“You’re saying that, Mr Potter, doesn’t necessarily make it true.”
“No; but it’s true all the same. If Miss Betty was in any way to blame,—which, I can’t believe,—you’ll never find out anything. Because, if she’s alive she’d have shown up by this time.”
“Go on,—and if Miss Betty was not to blame——”
“Then, whoever was to blame made a blame good job of it,—and you’ll never catch him!”
“That’s the principle I’m going to work on,—the idea that somebody did do it,—that he did make a good job of it,—and that I am going to catch him!”
“Fine talk, but there’s the same old stumbling block. You can’t argue an outsider,—an intruder, without allowing a secret entrance to that house,—and you say there isn’t any.”
“There sure isn’t.”