"When you get time," he said, "I'd like to have you tell me how you brought this case to a close so suddenly."
Ned motioned to the man who had been stripped of his disguise to take a chair at the table. The fellow did so reluctantly, turning his face this way and that, as if seeking some opportunity of escape.
"Well," he said. "You have the floor. Go On."
"You were at Taku?" asked Ned.
"I deny everything!"
"You will deny your own fingerprints, the shoeprints?" asked Ned.
"Well, supposing, for the sake of argument, that I was at Taku, what has that to do with this brutal and illegal arrest?"
"You placed the powder under the house where the wounded men lay?"
"No."
"I have something I want to show you," Ned said, taking a paper from his pocket. "Have you a match?"