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232 but it is simply impossible for me to convince myself that any of them could be capable of such a monstrous, unnatural crime."

"How did you expect to discover anything in these two days which would lead you to suspect the guilt of some member of the household?"

"Simply by studying them and asking unexpected questions; but, as I told you, it didn't get me anywhere. As an amateur detective, I am a failure; and now I've put it squarely up to you. Sergeant. The means of bringing about my mother's death was here, ready to anyone's hand; and the knowledge of how to make use of it was equally accessible. I have no proof that anyone did avail themselves of it, merely suspicion; and if the circumstantial evidence were twice as strong—"

"Strong!" A raucous but strangely exultant voice behind them caught up the word and repeated it with impish glee. "Strong! Nobody knows how strong I am!"

It was Socrates, dancing excitedly upon his perch and eyeing them obliquely with a knowing leer.

"Who taught the parrot to say that?" demanded the detective abruptly. It was the phrase which had first arrested Taylor's attention outside the closed door when that conscientious operative was searching the house for possible clues.

"Nobody. He's been harping on that for a month or more; but I never can tell how he manages to pick up half that he knows." Rannie laughed with a tinge of the old bitterness. "He certainly never heard me boasting of my physical prowess!"

"Is he ever taken out of this room?"