"What do you think that young rascal did?"
"Who?"
"Arnold. Went to a chemist, a friend of mine, fellow-townsman, too, Phineas Fowler, and bought a big heap of combustible powder, a day or two before the fire. Sprinkled it over the whole room, probably."
"He wasn't so foolish as to leave his name, however?"
"Oh, Phineas knew the photograph. Spotted him right away when I fetched her out. Lucky I took it now, wan't it? 'That's the man,' says Phineas."
"I believe I have your friend's address already," said Shagarach, and in two or three days he was paying a long-delayed visit to Phineas Fowler.
Amid the compound odor of chemicals sat a shriveled pantaloon, with a long, thin beard whose two forks he kept pulling and stroking. Shagarach was about to state his business, when a stranger at the window came forward and interrupted him.
"The young man who bought the combustion powder was identified in jail yesterday," said Inspector McCausland, smiling. "It was only Floyd, on that matter of the bomb."
That matter of the bomb! Perhaps it would be harder to explain than Emily thought.
But McCausland was not always out beating the bush for evidence. Occasionally the mountain went to Mahomet. The reward of $5,000, which Harry Arnold had advertised, drew a dribbling stream of callers to the inspector's office. There was the veiled lady, who had seen the crime with the eyes of her soul, and would accept a small fee for a clairvoyant seance, and the lady with green glasses, whose card announced her as "Phoebe Isinglass, metaphysician." The moderation of her terms could only be accounted for by her scientific interest in the matter. She asked only $1,000 if she proved Floyd insane, $500 if she proved him sane, and $100 (merely as a compensation for her time) if the case baffled her skill.