Jarvis clasped his hands behind his head and stared off into space. "It was near the end of December that Professor Morgan came to my rooms one evening and asked my assistance on the case of Richard Glover."
For the first time since the beginning of the trial, the chief witness for the prosecution betrayed an unguarded emotion. The narrow slit of amber, showing between his drooping lids, widened.
"My caller," Jarvis went on, "explained to me that he and his sister, who were friends of Roger Kenwick, had stumbled upon a clue the previous day that had made them suspect that there was foul play about his death; that perhaps he might even be alive after all, and a base advantage taken of his helplessness."
Here Dayton interjected a question. "Was there any special reason why Professor Morgan should have chanced upon you as the detective for this investigation? Had you had any previous connection with him?"
"Only an academic connection. He knew, through university affiliations, that I was out here on the coast doing some research work for Columbia in my chosen profession—criminal psychology."
"Then you are not a detective?"
"Not in the strict sense of the word. The finding out of a criminal is only the introductory part of my interest."
"Proceed with your story, Mr. Jarvis."
"Well, Professor Morgan and I had lunched together several times over at the Faculty Club on the campus, so I was not greatly surprised to receive a call from him. Furthermore, having heard the other side of this case, I was much interested in the opportunity to study it from a new angle. For while I was in Mr. Glover's employ, I had, unsuspected by Kenwick himself, subjected him to a variety of exacting psychological tests. Under the pretext of making some photographic experiments in which I was at that time interested, I had enlisted his aid on several occasions and in this way had made a rather thorough examination of his five senses, his power of association, his memory (both for retentiveness and recall), and had tried him out, by means of various athletic games, for muscular coördination, endurance, poise, and many other essentials of normality. In only one of these did I find him defective. And that one was memory.
"My research was made the more interesting by the fact that shortly after I undertook the work for Mr. Glover the subject gave me, voluntarily and quite unsuspectingly, the complete story of his strange adventure at Rest Hollow, an adventure for which he frankly confessed that he could not account. It coincided exactly with the hypothesis which I had established for him; that he had at one period of his life been mentally unbalanced, and that he had in some way re-gained his sanity but not completely his memory. When I knew that there was likely to be a crime attributed to him (for Mr. Glover had hinted as much) my interest doubled. For Mr. Kenwick had on various occasions shown himself possessed of the highest ideals and a fineness of caliber which I have not often encountered. And so, in the employ of Professor Morgan, I shifted the focal point and turned the search-light of science upon the accuser. It has resulted in the most startling revelations."