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130 The detective told his story from the inquiries which he and Titheredge had made at the carpenter's shop concerning the mysterious telephone message to the conclusion of his interview with Randall Chalmers and the discovery in the parrot's cage; and after he had finished the captain sat for a while in silence.

"Well, let's say that you have established proof of the murder of Julian Chalmers and the attempted murder of his brother and of Richard Lorne," he remarked at last. "You have also strong circumstantial evidence of the murder of Mrs. Lorne; and it all points to an inside job. I think for the time being we can drop Miss Meade and the two young ladies out of it; that leaves Lorne himself, the two Chalmers boys, and the four servants. What do you make of that cripple?"

"He has abnormally long arms, and hands like talons; and his attitude toward his family shows that he is lacking in moral sense to a certain degree, provided this utter callousness of his isn't a pose. I admit he has me guessing," Odell replied frankly. "He's only a kid, yet he talks like an old man; and his brain is keen if it is warped. Now, these two attempted crimes, like the two already accomplished, show remarkable ingenuity coupled with a carelessness in execution in each case that would seem to mark them as the conception of a mind that was erratic, to say the least; and the hacked picture-wires and sawed step of the stairs would both have required strength of no mean order. The hint that maid Gerda tried to give me, too, about insanity sticks in my mind. Who could she have meant but that boy?

"There is the sawdust, also. When I first examined the