The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1927-08-12
CHAPTER V-Ccntinued

WIN IeellnS OF excitement winch
I found it hard to conceal, l began
reading those first twelve neutral
words. His answers came with flash
like rapidity. He was good subject
and he had entered fully into the spir-
1t of the test. To my ear the interval
between my word and his was about
half second. When saw the record
afterward, I found that it averaged a
little less than that-about four
tenths
The word Pen brought the obvious
association, Ink. Snow called up
Shovel; and Song, Theater The
twelfth word, Sign, called up the curl
GUS association, Woodland, which was
to prove of interest and significance
to us before the day was out. But /
had no time to think about it then.
Without varying the interval. with
out varying the tone of my voice, or
nnraising my eyes from the list I held
n my hand. pronounced the thir-
zenith word. Loops.
The answer came like a flash, and
It was Automobile. glanced up as he
said 1t, and caught faint smile of
"reminiscences on his lips. Loops in his
mind were things to be Topped, and
the circus billboards supplied the as
ISOLATION with automobile. The next
word Pipe, brought the simple asso-
citation, Tobacco. To my mind his un-
hesitating utterance Of that word was
90 I,
cence Of the crime itself as a COM
pletely established alibi woul! have
BEEN
But we were only at the beginning
of our experiment. Neither the doc
tor nor believed him guilty. We both
believed that, hidden in some corner
of that mind of his, was piece Of
unsupported knowledge which would
give US the key with which to unlock
the heart of the mystery.
Three or four numbers down the
list came another word, Map, which
might have drawn significant reply.
The instantaneous association which
1t brought up, however, was Europe.
After that came succession of
words, straight inventories of articles
to be found in various rooms in the
Morgan house, but they all drew blank.
Never once was there q moments hest
tation.
So far our test proved, clearly and
exhaustively, that, in his testimony at
the inquest, our young man had
meant to tell the truth. / was re-
minded of the Doctors words on the
night of our return from the hospital,
when he had warned me against fall
ing into the error of thinking that
the unlikely could not happen. His
old theory Of associative Illusion,
which had been made to look so fan
tastically improbable by our discovery
of the cloak, was practically proven
true in the very teeth of its improba-
bility by this test of ours.
But who was the girl Harvey knew
the black-haired girl who wore
green cloak, with the collar cut high
in the back? We were as far as ever
from the answer to that question.
And so far as I could see none of
his associates with the successive
words in my list brought out anything
of significance. Apparently we, were
drawing blank cover. At the same
time, / was aware that something or
other had made my chief extremely
thoughtful. The way he was opening
and shutting his hands and staring out
of the window. the perplexed frown
which knitted his brows, made it clear
that there was only one link lacking
in some chain of association of his
own.
At last as I glanced at him in the
half second interval between my word
and Harvey's, saw that he had got
it; saw the sudden flare of excitement
kindle ir his eyes and his two clenched