"I don't know who you are or why you are prying into an affair that, at least on its face, does not concern you," replied Dick. "I'll say nothing at all—unless—unless you produce the one man who can and shall explain this affair. Produce him here in this room where I can get my hands on him!"
The Thinking Machine squinted at the sturdy shoulders with admiration in his face.
"Did it ever happen to occur to you, Mr. Herbert, that Harry Meredith and his father are precisely of the same build?"
Some nameless, impalpable expression crept into Dick's face despite an apparent fight to restrain it, and again he stared at the small man in the chair.
"And that you and Mr. Meredith are practically of the same build?"
Tormented by unasked questions and by those emotions which had compelled him to silence all along, Dick still paced back and forth. His head was whirling. The structure which he had so carefully guarded was tumbling about his ears. Suddenly he stopped and turned upon The Thinking Machine.
"Just what do you know of this affair?" he asked.
"I know for one thing," replied the scientist positively, "that you were not the man in the automobile."
"How do you know that?"
"That's beside the question just now."