"Please note," said the governor as the paper passed from hand to hand, "that same device is traced there five times, sometimes more irregularly than others, but the general form is the same. Now, in the fireplace of the bungalow living-room they found this and three other sheets of the same stationery that bore this same figure. It seems a fair assumption that someone sitting at a table had amused himself by sketching these outlines and then, when he had filled the sheet, tore it off and threw it into the fireplace, wholly unconscious of what he was doing. The prosecutor attached no importance to these sheets, and it was only by chance that they were stuck away in the file box with the other documents in the case."
"Then you suspect that there was a third man in the bungalow that night?" Ramsay asked.
The governor nodded gravely.
"Yes; I have some little proof of it, quite a bit of proof, in fact. I have even had the wastebasket of the suspect examined for a considerable period. Knowing Burgess's interest in such matters, I have been using him to get me certain information I very much wanted. And our friend is a very successful person! I wanted to see the man I have in mind and study him a little when he was off-guard, and Burgess has arranged that for me, though he had to go into the tile business to do it! As you can readily see, I could hardly drag him to my office, so this little party was gotten up to give me a chance to look him over at leisure."
"Tate!" exclaimed several of the men.
"You can see that this is a very delicate matter," said the governor slowly. "Burgess thought it better not to have a smaller party, as Tate, whom I never saw, might think it a frame-up. So you see we are using you as stool-pigeons, so to speak. Burgess vouches for you as men of discretion and tact; and it will be your business to keep Tate amused and his attention away from me while I observe him a little."
"And when I give the signal you're to go into the library and look at picture books," Burgess added.
"That's not fair!" said Fullerton. "We want to see the end of it!"
"I'm so nervous," said Colton, "I'm likely to scream at any minute!"
"Don't do it!" Burgess admonished. "The new House Committee is very touchy about noise in the private dining-rooms, and besides I've got a lot of scenery set for the rest of the evening, and I don't want you fellows to spoil it."