"A little oil--" I grumbled, more to myself than to her, and hurried to the garage workbench for the can that would certainly be there. It was, but I didn't touch it. What I did lean over and clutch from where they lay tossed in carelessly among rubbish and old spare parts, were three more magnets exactly the same as the one we had brought from Capehart's. I sprinted back with them. "Barbara," I called in an undertone. "Come here. Look." Held side by side, the four, working as one, moved the bolts as well as fingers could have done, and through more than an inch of hard wood. "Yes," she looked at it; "but that doesn't prove Eddie Hughes the murderer." "No?" her opposition began to get on my nerves. "I'm afraid that'll be a matter for twelve good men and true to settle." She stood silent, and I added, "I know now whose shadow I saw on the broken panel of that door there, the first Sunday night." "Oh, it was Eddie's," she agreed rather unexpectedly. "And he came to steal the 1920 diary," I supplied. "He came to get a drink from the cellaret, and a cigar from the case. That's the use he made of his power to move these bolts." "Until the Saturday night when he killed his employer, the man he hated, and left things so the crime would pass as suicide. Barbara, are you just plain perverse?" Instead of answering, she went back to the table, got the contraption Hughes had made for her, and started as if to leave me. On the threshold, she hesitated. "I don't suppose there's anything I can say or do to change your mind," her tone was inert, drained. "I know that Eddie is innocent of this. But you don't want to listen to deductions." "Later," I said to her, briskly. "It'll keep. I've something to do now." "What? You promised Worth to make no move against Eddie Hughes until you had his permission." She seemed to think that settled it. I let her keep the idea. "Run along, Barbara," I said, "get to your paint daubing. I'll forgive you everything for deducing--well, discovering, if you like that better--about these bolts and magnets." Skeet burst from the kitchen door of the Thornhill house, caught sight of us, shouted something unintelligible, and came racing through the grounds toward Vandeman's. "Been waiting for me long, angel?" she called, as Barbara moved up with a lagging step, then, waving two pairs of overalls, "Got pants for both of us, honey. The paints and brushes are over there. We'll make short work of that old banner, now." Promised Worth, had I? But the situation was changed since then. No man of sense could object to my moving on what I had now. I locked the study door, went back to my roadster, and headed her uptown. CHAPTER XXV AN ARREST