“You puzzle me.”
“There is no reason for your being puzzled, and you would not be if you had brought to bear the same amount of practical common sense that you take to your business.”
“Explain.”
“Why, as I said, these blood drops do not prove that Mr. Field was carried along here. Yet neither do they disprove it.”
“But, if the villains went so far—no matter what their purpose—to create the belief that he had been carried along here, is it not fair to presume that they did not carry him along here at all?”
“Yes, it is fair to presume so. In fact, to think of the possibility of this does honor to your shrewdness. And yet the presumption would be a bad one to act upon.”
“Why so?”
“Because it is evident to me already that the persons who are engaged in this affair are not common criminals, but men keen, shrewd and with any quantity of brains.”
“Then you think Mr. Field was carried along this way?”
“I do not.”