“Wait a minute,” Norris interrupted. “Somebody who wasn’t there, you say? How do you know there wasn’t anybody there?”
“Why, good Lord, man, there simply wasn’t! Halliday saw nobody.”
“You think it strange, then—Billy’s babbling and gesturing before he died?”
“Strange, certainly. Unless old Halliday⸺”
“Well, I’ll tell you something else that may sound strange, coming from me who haven’t been near this post in five days. Doctor, isn’t it true that when Billy went up for his 609 this afternoon you disqualified him irrevocably, unconditionally, for good and all?”
The surgeon gaped his astonishment.
“Good night!” he gasped. “How did you know that? It’s a fact!”
“If I told you how I knew you’d disqualify me, you’d say I was crazy. I’ll tell you some time—perhaps. But not tonight. I feel too low to brawl with a skeptic. But just to show you that I’m not simply a good guesser I’ll tell you something else.”
Norris paused impressively, then affirmed:
“Billy didn’t know you’d disqualified him when he went out to fly. Something had interfered. You hadn’t told him.”