channels, in the throat, in the viscera, stomach, blood, nerves, brain-of anything of the sort?"
"You know there wasn't," he answered.
"Quite so. Then except for the problematical lighted corpuscle, there is absolutely no evidence of method.
Therefore we have absolutely nothing in essential number one upon which to base a theory of murder.
Let's take number two-opportunity.
"We have a tarnished lady, a racketeer, a respectable spinster, a bricklayer, an eleven-year-old
schoolgirl, a banker, an acrobat and a trapeze performer. There, I submit, is about as incongruous a
congregation as is possible. So far as we can tell, none of them except conceivably the circus men-and
Peters and the Darnley woman-had anything in common. How could anyone, who had opportunity to
come in close enough contact to Peters the racketeer to kill him, have equal opportunity to come in