“Great!” said Dick. “How are you getting on with it?”
“Pretty well,” answered the other with a sudden lapse of enthusiasm. “The trouble is I don’t seem able to work it out. You see, the fellow who murdered the old codger, Middleton, had to get into that room somehow, didn’t he?”
“I suppose he did,” agreed Dick.
“Well, but how could he? There were bars at the window and the door was locked inside.”
“I guess he committed suicide, Fudge.”
“Couldn’t have,” responded Fudge decidedly. “The wound was on the back of his head.”
“You could change that, couldn’t you?”
“Y-yes, but that wouldn’t do. He had to be murdered so that Young Sleuth could unravel the mystery, don’t you see? I thought maybe I’d have it that the murderer was hidden somewhere in the room and escaped afterwards, but Young Sleuth looked everywhere. There’s six pages about his examination of the room and his finding a clew.”
“What sort of a clew did he find?” asked Dick, trying to seem interested in Fudge’s conversation and at the same time follow the story being thrown on the screen.
“Finger-prints,” confided Fudge, “and a piece of torn paper with three words on it.”