“I?” questioned the astonished Raikes. “What standpoint had I?”
“Elimination,” replied Gratz.
“Several puzzling possibilities were retired permanently.
“Recall the details as we have enumerated them: An impossible door; the window equally out of the question; the substitution of the coals for the coin.
“It is very simple. The outside agency unfeasible, we must look within. There is but one conclusion——”
“And that?” interrupted Raikes.
“An accessory.”
“Ah!” cried Raikes, “unthinkable!”
“Not at all,” replied Gratz; “there was an accessory—yourself!”
At this announcement Raikes seemed about to collapse into his original helplessness. The facts of his losses were extraordinary enough, but this was too much.