CHAPTER XXI.
Mathematics and Murder
(Saturday, April 16; 8.30 p. m.)
Little was said about the case during dinner, but when we had settled ourselves in a secluded corner of the club lounge-room Markham again broached the subject.
“I can’t see,” he said, “that finding a loophole in Pardee’s alibi helps us very much. It merely complicates an already intolerable situation.”
“Yes,” sighed Vance. “A sad and depressin’ world. Each step appears to tangle us a little more. And the amazin’ part of it is, the truth is staring us in the face; only, we can’t see it.”
“There’s no evidence pointing to any one. There’s not even a suspect against whose possible culpability reason doesn’t revolt.”
“I wouldn’t say that, don’t y’ know. It’s a mathematician’s crime; and the landscape has been fairly cluttered with mathematicians.”
Throughout the entire investigation no one had been indicated by name as the possible murderer. Yet each of us realized in his own heart that one of the persons with whom we had talked was guilty; and so hideous was this knowledge that we instinctively shrank from admitting it. From the first we had cloaked our true thoughts and fears with generalities.
“A mathematician’s crime?” repeated Markham. “The case strikes me as a series of senseless acts committed by a maniac running amuck.”
Vance shook his head.