“Well?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said grimly, “both well and bad. I was too late.”
He handed me a document he had been carrying in his hand.
“Grainger’s confession,” he said.
“Grainger!” Nora Lepley cried, springing forward as if with intent to seize the paper. “What do you mean by that? And where is Mr. Grainger?”
“Dead,” Pepster returned laconically. “A dose of the medicine he gave Clevedon. Dead in his own office, and with this paper left on the table.”
“Sit down,” I said, turning to Nora Lepley, “and listen. This will interest you.”
I read aloud what Grainger had written, and after that we had no difficulty in persuading the girl to talk.
CHAPTER XXVII
WHO KILLED PHILIP CLEVEDON
It has fallen to my lot to outline the solution of a good many mysteries, but never did I have a more appreciative or attentive or admiring audience than on this particular occasion. To them I was a wonder-worker, who had straightened out what looked like a hopeless tangle. I made no attempt to undeceive them. It wasn’t worth while, and it would have taken too long. But the reader who has followed my detailed recital will know how I really blundered through, how often I pursued false clues, the many side-issues that misled me, and the patient, methodical and, on the whole, not very exciting linking together of ascertained facts, which eventually conducted me to the goal I sought. That is how all detective work that is worth anything is done. The result may seen brilliant taken by itself, but in detail it is a curious mixture of luck and chance, with some amount of common sense, and a little of what is generally labelled intuition.