"2. From Doctor Westbrook's office;
"3. Through the window at the end of the hall, which opens into the light-well; and
"4. Through Mr. Nettleton's private office.
"Assuming the truth of all the statements, the story I obtained from Lynden obviates the first; number two we will set aside on the strength of Doctor Westbrook's statement, partially corroborated by Howe. Regarding the third route—that is to say, the hall window opening into the light-well—we have two persons who were looking into the light-well from two different points, from about five minutes before, and during the time the deed was committed, until several seconds thereafter. These two are Mr. Howe and Judge Elihu Petty, of Petty & Carlton, who was looking from his window in the Field Building, diagonally across from where Howe was standing. Both these gentlemen are positive that no one entered or left the Nettleton hall window, and that there was no movement of any kind at any of the other windows during the time they were looking into the light-well. Indeed, it seems impossible that there could have been under the circumstances. Looking from any of the windows mentioned, the entire light-well is within one's range of vision; and while it is true that twilight had set in, it was by no means dark or even nearly so when the deed was committed; and we may assume that it was impossible for anybody to have entered the hall by way of the light-well without attracting the attention of either Howe or Judge Petty.
"Fortunately we have a basis from which to estimate the exact time the blow was struck, and, in fact, all the other known incidents in this affair. That was the five o'clock whistles. We may set it down, then, as another established fact, that the blow was delivered in not to exceed four seconds of that hour. Howe knows the exact time he took up his position at the laboratory window; it was there he was standing when De Sanchez fell through the reception-room door, and at that moment he heard the whistles begin blowing. Judge Petty remembers the circumstance also, and connects it with Howe's sudden disappearance from the laboratory window; and Doctor Westbrook is now able to recall the fact of the whistles blowing being coincident with the deceased's tragic entrance.
"These facts confine us to Mr. Nettleton's private office to seek a solution, and there we find a number of circumstances justifying a closer examination.
"The facts here warrant the following assumptions: That between four-thirty and five o'clock yesterday afternoon, Clay Fairchild and some woman—name unknown—were in Mr. Nettleton's offices; that Mr. Fairchild did not depart until after five o'clock; that the lady was familiar with the arrangement of the second floor; that so far we know no one who either saw her enter the building, or saw her while she was inside it, or saw her leave; that she went into Mr. Nettleton's private office from the hall, where she stood behind the door for a while; that she next tiptoed on through to Mr. Nettleton's general office, where she stopped again at the connecting door, close by Fairchild's desk, at which point, in her agitation, she dropped this handkerchief into the waste-paper basket. She then made her way to the hall door of Mr. Nettleton's general office, where she again stopped behind the door, as though waiting for some one to pass.
"Now, if this woman was the assassin, her actions are easily explained. She stood behind the private office door—whence, with the door ajar, one has a view down the length of the hall to the stairway—and awaited the victim's approach; just as he turned to enter the Doctor's office she sprang out and administered the death wound,—in such haste to get back that she made no effort to recover the weapon, but hurried on through Mr. Nettleton's office to the hall door of the general office. Here warning footsteps announce that there is some one else in the hall, and standing close to the partially opened door, with her hand on the knob, she waits until Lynden passes. It is but a second after that he is standing at the threshold of the Doctor's open door, overcome by the scene it discloses, and both deaf and blind for a moment to all else. She takes advantage of that moment to pass on down the hall to the stairway, and so out of the building, probably unobserved by any one except Fairchild. An agile person would have had just about time before Lynden appeared at the head of the stairs to strike such a blow as killed De Sanchez, and then either spring into the light-well or run into Mr. Nettleton's office.
"Now, all this could not have happened without Fairchild's knowledge, and we are not lacking light on his participation in the murder under the theory I am now unfolding.
"Under the circumstances, knowledge can mean only connivance. The known facts coincide precisely, and explain every hypothesis upon which this theory is based; and to get at his connection with the affair, please observe these two bits of paper."