“Are you satisfied that Whalley was the author of all the killings?” asked the reporter.
“No, I’m not,” returned the doctor. “It leaves altogether too much unexplained. I wish I could believe in the professor’s pteranodon.”
“On account of the marks that Whalley showed you?”
“Not that alone. Just consider all the weak points in the theory that Whalley is guilty of all the crimes. First: why should he confess part and not all?”
“That’s not unusual.”
“But have you ever known such a case where the murderer was as frank as Whalley? How are you going to ascribe any part in Petersen’s death to the juggler? He couldn’t have thrown his knife in that blackness.”
“I suppose it must have been done aboard the vessel before the man left in the breeches-buoy.”
“The evidence of the sailors is all against that. However, let it go at that. How about the sheep? Why did he kill that?”
“For food. He was camping somewhere on the knolls, and he had to eat.”
“And he was frightened away before he could make way with the carcass? Well, that’s tenable. Now we come to the unhorsing of my brother. That might have been caused by poor Ely’s kites, as I figure it. They broke away, came zigzagging past and frightened the mare into insanity. Afterward they scared her over the cliff.”