Page:The Blind Man's Eyes (July 1916).pdf/219

Rh "Just ten days ago," Santoine said evenly and dispassionately, "I was found unconscious in my berth—Section Three of the rearmost sleeper—on the transcontinental train, which I had taken with my daughter and Avery at Seattle. I had been attacked,—assailed during my sleep some time in that first night that I spent on the train,—and my condition was serious enough so that for three days afterward I was not allowed to receive any of the particulars of what had happened to me. When I did finally learn them, I naturally attempted to make certain deductions as to who it was that had attempted to murder me, and why; and ever since, I have continued to occupy myself with those questions. I am going to tell you a few of my deductions. You need not interrupt me unless you discover me to be in error, and then in error only in fact or observation which, obviously, had to be reported to me. If you fancy I am at fault in my conclusions, wait until you discover your error."

Santoine waited an instant; Eaton thought it was to allow him to speak if he wanted to, but Eaton merely waited.

"The first thing I learned," the blind man went on, "was the similarity of the attack on me to the more successful attack on Warden, twelve days previous, which had caused his death. The method of the two attacks was the same; the conditions surrounding them were very similar. Warden was attacked in his motor, in a public street; his murderer took a desperate chance of being detected by the chauffeur or by some one on the street, both when he made the attack and afterward when he escaped unobserved, as it happened, from the automobile. The attack upon me was made in the same