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Rh With an expression of boredom the attorney rose and tiptoed across the room. He placed his ear to the keyhole for a minute and then straightened with a shrug.

"Of course I hear it. Mice or even rats in the walls; you can't drive them out of an old house like this. That's probably what you heard before." He resumed his seat. "You can hear all sorts of noises at night if you only listen for them."

"I suppose so," Lorne muttered somewhat doubtfully as he went back to his chair. "I could have sworn, though, that it sounded louder than any rat."

"As I was saying when you interrupted"—Titheredge ignored the last remark—^"I would not have recommended Barry Odell to you if I didn't know all about him and his capabilities. He's young still, about twenty-eight or thirty; but I've watched his work on a couple of murder cases, and I tell you he will go far."

Lorne stirred uneasily in his chair.

"Murder! That's rather a strong word, isn't it? We don't actually know yet that those wires were severed; and we don't want the affair treated as an ordinary murder, or series of them. It's the devilish ingenuity of the whole thing that staggers me, Sam." He drummed on the arms of his chair. "If they hadn't come so rapidly, one after the other within the month, any sane person would have sworn they were each the result of pure accident! How could my poor wife have been poisoned before my very eyes? And Julian; what terrible influence could have made him slash his throat in just that vital spot? It would have been unbelievable except for the damning evidence of those cut wires!"