"What put that into your head?" asked my companion, looking at me with sudden curiosity.
"Nothing but the reduction of the thing to the last analysis. Either he is dead, or he is alive. As you say, he could hardly have been killed on such a night without attracting attention. Besides, the motives for Paul's killing him were wholly inadequate. No, let me go on. Therefore I say that he was taken alive."
"Where?"
"In Santa Sophia."
"But then," argued Balsamides, "the driver would have seen him carried out."
"Yes," I admitted. "That is the difficulty. But he might perhaps have been taken through the porch; at all events, he must have gone down the stairs alone, taking the lantern."
"They found the lantern," said Gregorios. "You did not know that? A long time afterwards the man who opens the towers confessed that when he had gone up with the brothers and the kaváss he had found that his taper was burnt out. He picked up the kaváss's lantern and carried it down, meaning to return with the next party of foreigners. No other foreigners came, and when he went up to find the Patoffs they were gone and the carriage was gone. He kept the lantern, until the offers of reward induced him to give it up and tell his story."
"That proves nothing, except that Alexander went down-stairs in the dark."
"I have an idea, Griggs!" cried Balsamides, suddenly changing his tone. "It proves this,—that Alexander did not necessarily go down the steps at all."
"I do not understand."