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122 you were the first to realize that it was a feeling of fear and suspense held in common among you all and to give voice to it. I fancy you are rather given to studying the people around you, digging under the surface, for your own amusement perhaps; and that's why I've come to you."

"Amusement? Good Lord, do you think it's amusing to find out that your family are a pack of hypocritical—". The boy broke off suddenly, his thin, sallow, claw-like hands clenched. "I've had nothing else to do but study them, hang it. I know them all backward, like a fellow who's marooned on some desert island with a few books by indifferent authors."

Odell nodded understandingly.

"I know. That's just why I've come to you. I haven't had time to read these books, you see; and I must know their contents quickly or another of them may be permanently closed."

He had continued the boy's metaphor, and the latter lay for some moments staring fixedly at him with no change of expression. Then gradually the sneering smile vanished as if a hand had passed across his lips.

"Another of them?" he repeated. "Gene got off scot-free, and Dad with only his arm and a rib or two out of commission. You must mean—"

"That your fears were well founded? I am afraid so." Odell's tone was studiously callous. "That's the trouble with people when they start murder on a large scale; success makes them too confident, too impatient. These tragic accidents which have occurred under this roof might have passed unsuspected for what they seemed on the surface to be; but they came too close together. The coincidence