"And you're trying to find out what these--these booby traps are?" "Oh I know many of them already. My paper will surprise the world. I'm working on a more advanced phase of the problem now. I am tracing a pattern of interlocking violations to show that the scene of the end-results can be only sheerest coincidence. I want to banish once and for all the superstition-stigma attached to scenes of repeated misfortune and violence." "The Reamer mansion." "That's right. And now I must be going, Miss Hopstead." He gave me the departing smile and started for the door. "Professor Waits." "Yes?" "About Mabel Tutworthy. Did she really drag that buck ten miles." "No. It was only a fawn. And she killed it less than a mile from her cabin." "And the murder of Henry Reamer. What proof--?" "Nothing the police would be interested in. It was the end-result of a cause they won't understand until my work is published and given study." He opened the door, looked around, smiled. "This is certainly a fine old building. I _must_ bring Nicholas with me the next time." With that, he was gone. * * * * * I found myself looking forward to his next visit. I looked and looked and a month passed and a tall, serious-faced youth came into the library and waited until I'd finished checking in Mrs. Garvey's returns. "I understand," he said, "that you have an immense store of local history in this library?" "The section by the south window." "Thank you." He peered at me through thick lenses. "Thank you Miss--" "--Hopstead." "Miss Hopstead. I am Nicholas Worthy. Possibly you knew a friend of mine. Professor Waits? I am carrying on his work." "Carrying on--? Did something happen to--?" "Oh. Then you didn't hear. It was most tragic. Professor Waits died of pneumonia. A great loss--a great loss." I was deeply shocked. My feeling was that of losing a close friend. "No, I hadn't heard. It must have been very sudden." "It was. He was advanced in years, you know, and after he fell, pneumonia set in quickly. They were unable to save him." "The Professor had an accident?" "Yes. He fell down the main staircase of the Reamer mansion and broke his hip."