Again he concentrated his whole mentality on the room and its contents. He swore to wrest from the silent witnesses the story of the crime. This was not his usual method of procedure. On the contrary, he almost invariably learned his points from questioning people, from observing suspects, or quizzing witnesses. But, he realized the difference in essence between this case and any other in which he had ever engaged. He had no more questions to ask. He knew all any one could or would tell him. He knew all the facts, all the theories, all the evidence, all the testimony. And none of it was worth a picayune to him, except negatively. This case must be, and should be, solved by the application of his highest mental powers, by the most intense thought and, doubtless, by most brilliant and clever deduction from hints not facts, from ideas, not visible clues. To work, then! To the work that _must_ bring success! Leaving the window-seat, Stone walked round the room, and finally drew up in front of the mirror the easy chair in which Miss Carrington had sat when she received the blow given by Bates. Whether she had sat here while taking the poison, no one knew. If Stone's theory was right, she had not. By referring to the photographs taken of Miss Carrington after her death, Stone was able to reconstruct the scene correctly. He placed the easy chair just as it had been when she sat in it. He assumed the position she showed in the photographs, and gazed at himself in the mirror, as she must necessarily have done. Slowly, he went over that conversation reported by Anita Frayne. Never, for a moment, had he doubted the truth of that report. He was sure Miss Carrington had really said all the things Anita repeated, and the clear and indubitable explanation of those remarks would mean, he was sure, the solution of the mystery. By way of interviewing his silent witnesses, he endeavored to reconstruct, in thought, Miss Carrington's movements that night. Pauline and Anita had left her, all three of them angry, at a little after twelve. Later, Estelle had left her,--that was about quarter to one. Then she had on her embroidered robe and some jewels. She was not then sitting at the dressing-table. Nor had she then, presumably, taken the poison. For the doctors insisted that she had swallowed the poison very near the hour of one, but after it rather than before, and had placed the hour of her death at two. So, Stone reasoned, Miss Carrington must have taken that aconite at pretty nearly the very time Anita heard her talking. It seemed to Stone incredible that there could have been a person present to whom Miss Carrington could have addressed those remarks, and who could have given or allowed her to take the deadly draught. The idea that Pauline could have been this person was not among Fleming Stone's catalogue of possibilities.