Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/291

Rh Sheppard, if you will kindly take up those steins just as you have seen him do, perhaps I can tell you."

For the fraction of an instant Chapin halted; then, as under direct gaze of the psychologist, he reached out to pick up the first stein in the test, whose very seeming triviality made it the more incomprehensible to him, the sweat broke out on the backs of his hands; but he answered stoutly:

"That's heavier; the same; this lighter; and this the same again."

And again: "The same; heavier; lighter; the same! Now, what's the answer?"

"That my feeling which you forced upon me to make me choose you—I admit it—for the rôle you were so willing to assign to Tyler, Mr. Chapin, would probably have made me waste valuable time, if I had not been able to correct it, scientifically, as easily as I confirmed my other feeling in Tyler's favor. For there can be no question now that you had no more to do with the shooting of Neal Sheppard than he had. I must make still another test to determine the man who fired these shots."

"You mean you want to try me?" Sheppard demanded, uneasy and astounded.

"I would rather test the other man first, Mr. Sheppard; the fourth man who was in the woods with you," Trant corrected calmly.

"Findlay?"

The psychologist, as he looked around, saw in the faces of Sheppard, Chapin, and young Tyler alike, indignant astonishment.

"You don't know Findlay, Mr. Trant," Sheppard