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Rh to be meditating upon the unexplained circumstance of Hereford's wound and upon the complicated mechanism of the box whose intricate manipulation he had just declared offered proof that Hereford could not have done it. Hereford, who had been studying the bill of fare while he gave their orders, now laid it down and looked at McAdams, slightly smiling. Suddenly the detective brought his hand heavily down upon the table.

"No explanation is possible," he repeated, "because this case as it has been stated to us contains perfectly irreconcilable elements which no explanation possibly could cover. To reach any explanation at all, therefore, it is necessary to eliminate some of those elements."