“I mean perhaps somebody else worked the vanishing ink, and all that——” “But who would want to?” “The murderer—if it turns out to be not Pollard. Look here, Penny, Pollard is either innocent or guilty. If guilty, all your deductions are correct, but if innocent they must be transferred to some one else.” “Surely. But to whom?” “Dunno yet. Me, I think it is Pollard—but how, _how_, how did he manage it?” “Only by a confederate who did the deed.” “Which is not the solution! I don’t know how I know it, but I know that didn’t happen. Why, a villain might get a gunman to shoot somebody, but not to put up all that elaboration. The fingerprints, the telephoning stunt—all that was the work of an artist in crime, the cleverest criminal in the world, as you’ve admitted. Not a hireling.” “A hireling might be clever.” “Not in that way. No, a wizard like that is not anybody’s hireling. He’s in business for himself.” “Have it your own way. And I think you’re right. Well, then, how did Pollard get down there? Aeroplane?” “No; there’s a simple explanation, only we haven’t got it yet. Incidentally, how did he get up to New Hampshire and back without being missed here in New York. Aeroplane?” “He couldn’t have done it at all. You’re mistaken about seeing him there.” “Maybe.” Zizi knitted her pretty brows. “What time did he leave the hotel in that taxi to go to Phyllis’ dinner?” “Seven twenty-five. He had two errands on the way. He stopped——” “I know. For theater tickets and for flowers. How do they know so positively the exact time he left?” “That’s a coincidence. The doorman happened to catch sight of Pollard’s wrist watch as he got into the cab. It has a luminous face—I’ve seen him wear it—and the doorman noticed it was just twenty-five minutes after seven.” “What! Oh, oh, Penny! That explains it all! Oh, me, oh, my! To think of the simple solution! Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive! Oh, gracious goodness sakes! Be sure your sin will find you out!” “For heaven’s sake, Zizi, don’t act like a wild woman! When you begin to quote things I know you’re luny! Sit down and tell me what you’re talking about!” “Is this a dagger that I see before me? Oh, what a noble mind was here o’erthrown!” “Don’t get your Shakespeare mixed up. That first quotation is from Macbeth, but the other is from Hamlet. You look more like one of the witches!” “Oh, I am! I am! Double, double, toil and trouble!” “Zizi, behave! Stop your foolishness!” The girl was dancing up and down the room like a veritable witch-elf. She flung her long, thin arms about, and was really excited, her brain teeming with the sudden revelation that had come to her. “Do you remember the Macbeth witches?” she demanded, pausing before him, poised on one foot, and looking like a Sibyl herself. “Of course I do! Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble!”