"Captain," he said, "we can now begin to reconstruct this case. We can get some of the dead-wood from our minds. It is apparent to me that one of Mr. Stockbridge's sworn enemies--Morphy, for instance--confined in state's prison, set about to slay both members of the family. He secured a confederate whom he knew. This confederate has never been arrested in the state. We have that from the finger prints in the booth at Grand Central. We will presume that this confederate is the trouble-man. He is probably an expert electrician. He either tapped in on the wires the night Mr. Stockbridge was murdered or got behind the switchboard and called up the library 'phone." "The switchboard?" asked Loris. "You mean the big place where the girls are?" "Not exactly there. The wires run down and are tagged. It would be possible for him to cut in somewhere between the switchboard and the conduits. Now I don't know how it was done. There's several ways. But wherever he tapped in, he must have used a magneto to ring Mr. Stockbridge up, and afterwards a battery-set to do the talking. All this Westlake says it would be necessary to do, so that the operator would not notice a permanent signal on the board." "What was his object?" asked Nichols. "To cover himself. He first disconnected the wires and waited till I sent for a trouble-man. Frosby, or Frisby, was sent. The trouble-man took his place. He came here and looked the place over. He lied to Mr. Stockbridge and I when he told us about that tall German in the alley. If there was such a man there before the snow froze we would have his footprints." "You haven't them?" asked Loris. "No. Delaney has a set made by this trouble-hunter when he was at the junction-box. This must have been the time he either cut the connections so that I would send for him, or it was the time when he called up and threatened Mr. Stockbridge with death within twelve hours. You remember that the telephone company have no record of the call. Now the next call----" "Was there another?" the girl asked. "Yes--to your father at or about the moment he died. That was from the Grand Central Station at Forty-second Street. There's a good record of that. Your father knocked the telephone down when he dropped dead. The operator noticed that the connection was open and put on the howler. The record is clear on that." "But what is all this twisting and turning for?"