New Britain herald., 1922-08-08

devil of lot Of concentration for tho
 ordinary person. If he wants to ge his list complete, but In some odd way manage to do 1t without concen, tration at all" "l should think that's rather A use ful gift for an amateur detective You ought to have gone Into the pro. fession before.3
 Well, 1t Is rather useful. It's rather surprising, you know, to a stranger Let's surprise Cayley with 1t, shall we?"
 How"
 Well. let's ask him" Antony stopped and looked at Bill comically lets ask him what he's going to do with the key of the office"
 For a moment Bill did not under stand.
 Key Of the officer" he said vague ly. You don't mean-Tony. What do you mean? Good God, do you mean that Cayley-But what about Mark?"
 T don't know where Mark is- that's another thing I want to know but I'm quite certain that he hasn't got the key Of the office with him. Because Cayley's got 1t"
 Are you sur.e?"
 "Of course, don't really know that he's got 1t. but do know that he had it. know that when I came on him this afternoon, he had just locked the door and put the key in his pocket"
 You mean you saw him at the time, but that you've only just re- it--reconstructed it-in the way you were explaining just now?"
 NO. I didn't see him But I did see something. saw the key of the room"
 "Where?"
 Outside the billiard room door"
 Outside? But 1t was inside when we looked just now"
 Exactly"
 Who put it there?"
 Obviously Cayley."
 But"
 Lets go back to this afternoon. I cont remember noticing the billiard room key at the time I must have done so without knowing Probably when I saw Cayley banging at the door l may have wondered sub-con- sciously whether the key of the room next to it would fit. Well, when I was sitting out by myself on that seat just before you came along, I went over the whole scene in my mind, md I suddenly saw the billiard-room sey there-outside. And I began to wonder if the office key had been out dde too. When Cayley came up, I old you my idea and you were both interested. But Cayley was just a hade too interested. I dare say you lidn't notice it, but he was."
 By Jove!"
 Well, of course that proved noth | ng; and the key business didn't really l 'rove anything, because whatever side i f the door the other keys were. Mark night have locked his own private oom from the inside sometimes. But
 piled it on, and pretended that 1t ,as ,enorm ously important, and quite ltered the case altogether, anr hay 1g got Cayley thoroughly anxious bout 1t, as expected, he couldn't re- Ist He altered the keys and gave imself away entirely"
 But the library key was still out idle Why didn't he alter that?"
 Because he's a clever devil. For ne thing, the inspector had been in he library, and might possibly have I, oticed 1t already. And for another =" Antony hesitated.
 "What?" said Bill, after waiting for i'm to go on. |
 Its only guesswork. But fancy nat Cayley was thoroughly upset bout the key business. He didn't ant to commit himself definitely to 1e statement that the key was either utside or inside. He wanted to leave vague. It was safest that way' II
 T see," said Bill slowly. But his mind was elsewhere. He as wondering suddenly about Cayley Now then, Watson" said Antony ,ddenly Its time you said some ing" T say, Tony. do you really mean s T mean what I said, Bill. No y ore" l' Well, what does 1t amount to?' n simply that Robert Ablett died in e office this afternoon, and that ayley knows exactly how he died. t 1at's all. It doesn't follow that a ayley killed him." n "No. No, of course it doesn't. t III gave a sigh of relief. Hes just