"Never mind," said the scientist. "Next, Miss Willis." Curious eyes were turned on her, and she, too, grew suddenly white. "Against her is less direct evidence than against anyone else. Miss Willis positively declined to permit a search of her person until she was compelled to do so by the fact that the other two permitted it. The fact that nothing was found has no bearing on the subject. She did refuse.
"Then Charles Burton," the inexorable voice went on, calmly; as if in mere discussion of a problem of mathematics. "Burton is engaged to Miss Willis. He is ambitious. He recently lost twenty thousand dollars in stock speculation--all he had. He needed more money in order to give this girl, who refused to be searched, a comfortable home.
"Next Miss Clarke, secretary to Mr. Fraser. Originally she came under consideration through the fact that she used perfume, and that Mr. West's handkerchief carried a faint odor of perfume. Now it is a fact that for years Miss Clarke used violet perfume, then on the day following the robbery suddenly began to use strong rose perfume, which smothers a violet odor. Miss Clarke, you will remember, fainted at the time of the search. I may add that a short while ago she was employed in a bank which was robbed in the identical manner of this one."
Miss Clarke sat apparently calm, and even faintly smiling, but her face was white. The Thinking Machine squinted at her a moment, then turned suddenly to Cashier West.
"Here is the man," he said, "whose handkerchief was found, but he does not use perfume, has never used it. He is the man who would have had best opportunity to leave unfastened the window in his private office by which the thieves entered the bank; he is the man who would have had the best opportunity to apply a certain chemical solution to the granite sockets of the steel bars, weakening the granite so they could be pulled out; he is the man who misrepresented facts to me. He told me he did not have and had not tried to raise any especially large sum of money. Yet on the day following the robbery he deposited one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in cash in a bank in Chicago. The stolen sum was one hundred and twenty-nine thousand dollars. That man, there."
All eyes were now turned on the cashier. He seemed choking, started to speak, then dropped back into his chair.
"And last, Dunston," resumed The Thinking Machine, and he pointed dramatically at the receiving teller. "He had equal opportunity with Mr. West to know of the amount of money in the bank; he refused first to be searched, and you witnessed his act a moment ago. To this man now there clings the identical odor of violet perfume which was on the handkerchief--not a perfume like it, but the identical odor."
There was silence, dumfounded silence, for a long time. No one dared to look at his neighbor now; the reporter felt the tension. At last The Thinking Machine spoke again.
"As I have said, the person who planned and participated in the burglary is now in this room. If that person will stand forth and confess it will mean a vast difference in the length of the term in prison."
Again silence. At last there came a knock at the door, and Martha thrust her head in.