Page:The Eyes of Max Carrados.pdf/198

196 benefit of your inquiries, Mr Trigget," nodded the blind man. "Good-afternoon."

"Good-afternoon, sir," replied Trigget with gloomy deference. "It's very handsome of you to put it in that way, Mr Carrados, sir. But this isn't another Tarporley-Templeton case, if I may say so, sir. That was as plain as a pikestaff after all, sir."

"When we saw the pikestaff, Mr Trigget; yes, it was," admitted Carrados, with a smile. "But this is insoluble? Ah, well. When I was a boy I used to be extraordinarily fond of ghost stories, I remember, but even while reading them I always had an uneasy suspicion that when it came to the necessary detail of explaining the mystery I should be defrauded with some subterfuge as 'by an ingenious arrangement of hidden wires the artful Muggles had contrived,' etc., or 'an optical illusion effected by means of concealed mirrors revealed the modus operandi of the apparition. ' I thought that I had been swindled. I think so still. I hope there are no ingenious wires or concealed mirrors here, Mr Trigget?"

Mr Trigget looked mildly sagacious but hopelessly puzzled. It was his misfortune that in him the necessities of his business and the proclivities of his nature were at variance, so that he ordinarily presented the curious anomaly of looking equally alert and tired.

"Wires, sir?" he began, with faint amusement.

"Not only wires, but anything that might account for what is going on," interposed Mr Carlyle. "Mr Carrados means this, Trigget: you have reported that it is impossible for anyone to be concealed in the flat or to have secret access to it"

"I have tested every inch of space in all the rooms, Mr Carrados, sir," protested the hurt Trigget. "I