"No madder than he who would hint it of either of these," said Sir Charles, laying a hand upon the shoulder of the auditor and the secretary, and placing himself between them. "I demand to be judged by the same rule, set upon the same plane with them. We three alone were in this house when that abominable thing happened; we three alone had access to the records from which that information was wired. It never, for so much as the fraction of one second, passed out of our keeping or our sight; if it was wired at all it must have been wired from this house, from that room, and in that case, one or other of us must positively have been the person to do so. Well, _I_ did not; MacInery did not; Grimsdick did not. And yet, as you know, the 'wiring' was done--we should never stand a chance of knowing to whom, nor by whom, but for the accident which deflected the course of the message." "H'm! Yes! I don't think," commented Cleek reflectively. "It won't wash, that theory; no, decidedly it won't wash. Pardon? Oh, no, Sir Charles, I am not casting any doubt upon the telegraph operator's statement of the manner in which he received the message; it is his judgment that is at fault, not his veracity. Of course, there have been cases--very rare ones, happily--of one wire automatically tapping another through, as he suggested, there being a break and an overlapping of the broken wire on to the sound one; but in the present instance there isn't a ghost of a chance of such a thing having happened. In other words, Sir Charles, it is as unsound in theory as it is false in fact. Mr. Narkom has been telling me on the way here that the operator accounted for the sudden starting of the message to the falling of a storm-snapped wire upon an uninjured one, and for its abrupt cessation to the slipping off of that broken wire under the influence of the strong gale. Now, as we entered the town and proceeded through it, I particularly noted the fact that no broken wires were anywhere visible, nor was there sight or sign of men being engaged in repairing one." "Ah, yes," agreed Sir Charles, a trifle dubiously, "that may be quite so, Mr. Cleek; but, if you will pardon my suggesting it, is there not the possibility of a flaw in your reasoning upon that point? The wire in question may not have been located in that particular district through which you were travelling."