"If we knew that, Mr. Addison," he said, "we should know all there is to know about 'the Oritoga mystery.' But I think we should have advanced a long step towards this information if we could apprehend the Eurasian. Of course we have gathered up all the ragged details of the Red House incident: I refer to the carter who delivered the crate and collected it in the morning, of the caterer who supplied the supper and so forth. As I had fully expected, none of the evidence helped us at all."
"'The voice,'" I began.
"Exactly! The same 'voice' beyond a doubt, and the whole thing worked through the means of district messengers and others, telephonically instructed. No one appeared throughout, Mr. Addison."
"Yet," I said deliberately, "there was one point at which some one must have appeared—"
"Yes," he interrupted, "some one dragged the body out of that supper-room, down to the garage, and packed it in the crate."
"You have definitely convinced yourself that the telephone device was practiced there?"
"Beyond question. Haven't you seen the exchange number? That plug where at some time a gas-fitting had been fixed up in the wall—you remember?—proved on investigation to communicate with an empty room adjoining. The gas cylinder was placed there of course, and the telephone in the recess of the supper-room, where, fastened in by the velvet curtain, any one using the poison installation would be suffocated almost immediately."
"Good God, Gatton!" I cried. "It's a horrible business, and for my own part I have no idea what the next step should be."
"I'm a bit doubtful, myself," admitted Gatton; "but you know the line of reasoning which has led me to the conclusion that these people possess a base of operations somewhere in this district. I am having the neighborhood scoured pretty thoroughly, and I think it is merely a question of time, now, for us to hem in the wanted man—"
"And the wanted woman!" I added.