"You say he was whispering?"
"Yes, he was whispering."
"But mightn't it have been somebody else?"
"Why, I don't know what to say," said Peter. "I thought for sure it
was Joe Angell; but I had my back turned, I'd been talking to Grady,
the secretary, and then I turned around and moved over to the
book-case."
"How many men were there in the room?"
"About twenty, I guess."
"Were the lights turned off before you turned around, or after?"
"I don't remember that; it might have been after." And suddenly poor
bewildered Peter cried: "It makes me feel like a fool. Of course I
ought to have talked to the fellow, and made sure it was Joe Angell
before I turned away again; but I thought sure it was him. The idea
it could be anybody else never crossed my mind."
"But you're sure it was Jerry Rudd that was talking to him?"
"Yes, it was Jerry Rudd, because his face was toward me."
"Was it Rudd or was it the other fellow that made the reply about
the `sab-cat'?" And then Peter was bewildered and tied himself up,
and led them into a long process of cross-questioning; and in the
middle of it came the detective, bringing the book on sabotage with
McCormick's name written in the fly-leaf, and with the ground plan
of a house between the pages.
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