"Preposterous!" exclaimed Weston. "A knife can't come out of nothingness, Cardona!"
"I am telling you what the professor said, commissioner. I started a cross-examination on the spot. When you quiz excitable women, they don't begin to cook up stories. I talked to them. Nine people besides the professor all had the same story. They lay it on the ghost."
"The professor told his story first?"
"Yes, commissioner," said Cardona wisely. "That's the wrinkle. I figured just as you are figuring — that he was keeping something back. If this spook stuff is a fake, he would be the one to know it. So he would be the bird to lay it on. But that part doesn't hold."
"Why?"
"The professor couldn't have done it. He was tied to a fare-you-well. Get this, commissioner. Someone gave the alarm. There were two house detectives there inside of three minutes — good men, both of them. They pay for good men at the Dalban.
"Nobody went out of that room after they got there. They watched the professor. He was tied in his chair — and when I examined the knots, they were plenty tight. He didn't have a chance to get out of them — let alone get back in again."
"You're sure of that, Cardona?" the commissioner queried.
"Positive. It took us five minutes to get him loose. Even a wizard like Houdini was couldn't have got out of that chair, let alone this professor. He's no weakling, but he isn't husky."
"I don't like his story," persisted Weston.