“All the more wonder that the Major dropped the case,” declared Step. “He knows Groche from A to Z.”
Poke wagged his head. “There you are! Makes the business all the queerer. Each of them is a sticker, in his own way. And the Major had Groche just where he wanted him. And then, all of a sudden, he let up! What do you make of that, now?”
“Beats me,” Step confessed.
“What’s your notion, Sam?”
Sam did not meet Poke’s inquiring glance. “I think,” he said slowly, “that something must have happened to show the Major that Groche hadn’t shot him.”
“Huh! How do you make that out?” queried Step.
“That’d mean somebody else did the shooting,” observed Poke, the philosopher. “The Major was hit, fast enough—peppered in the head and in one hand. And he didn’t do it himself.”
“Of course not,” said Sam.
“Therefore, some one else did. The Major was sure Groche was the some one. Then he wasn’t sure. In between he’d found out something. Q. E. D.—as the Shark would remark.”
“Q. E. D.,” repeated Sam, for want of anything better.