"I don't mean that," he interrupted. "That's passive. This was active-"
"Good God, Braile!" I was honestly shocked. "Don't tell me you're suggesting all eight passed from the
picture by willing themselves out of it-and one of them only an eleven-year-old child!"
"I didn't say that," he replied. "What I felt was that it was not primarily Peters' own will doing it, but
another's will, which had gripped his, had wound itself around, threaded itself through his will. Another's
will which he could not, or did not want to resist-at least toward the end."
"La maledetta strega!" muttered Ricori again.
I curbed my irritation and sat considering; after all, I had a wholesome respect for Braile. He was too
good a man, too sound, for one to ride roughshod over any idea he might voice.
"Have you any idea as to how these murders, if murders they are, were carried out?" I asked politely.