“That’s so,” said he, slowly. “I’m beginning to get hold. There were two girls in the house; and you are inclined to suspect that it was the girl called Dallas who was with you in the office.”
“Precisely.”
“Why, then,” wonderingly, “there must have been three different designs upon the safe going forward at the same time.”
Kenyon shrugged his shoulders and took another cigar.
“I don’t think it possible for any merely human mind to get at the true inwardness of this strange game. At one moment the people engaged seem entirely in cahoots; in the next they are apparently making off-side plays of a decided personal nature. We have discussed their attitudes toward each other before, and the thing is beyond reason. Forrester is a friend to Dallas. He wishes her well, at any rate, as far as I can see. And yet he is a firm friend and stands high in the favor of Hong Yo, who would, I have no doubt, murder her in cold blood.”
“I think I said some time since that the thing is a puzzle,” spoke Webster. “And I have had no reason to change my mind. But what do you propose to do next?”
“I think a visit to Bellevue might have some results. Either of the two of my remaining namesakes might be able to talk to visitors by this time.”
“Excellent.”
A short time later they were engaged with the same youthful surgeon whom they had spoken with before.
“I suppose you have heard of the fate of the man from Butte,” said he after he had greeted them.