g
every possible place where the person suspected of this crime could have
concealed his weapon. For, one of the persons intimately connected with
this case purchased not long ago a silencer for a thirty-two-calibre
revolver, and I presume that that person carried the gun and the
silencer at the time of the murder of Kerr Parker."

Kennedy concluded in triumph, his voice high pitched, his eyes flashing.
Yet to all outward appearance not a heart-beat was quickened. Someone
in that room had an amazing store of self-possession. The fear flitted
across my mind that even at the last Kennedy was baffled.

"I had anticipated some such anti-climax," he continued after a moment.
"I am prepared for it."

He touched a bell, and the door to the next room opened. One of
Kennedy's graduate students stepped in.

"You have the records, Whiting" he asked.

"Yes, Professor."

"I may say," said Kennedy, "that each of your chairs is wired under the
arm in such a way as to betray on an appropriate indicator in the next
room every sudden and undue emotion. Though it may be concealed from
the eye, even of one like me who stands facing you, such emotion is
nevertheless expressed by physical pressure on the arms of the chair. It
is a test that is used frequently with students to demonstrate various
points of psychology. You needn't raise your arms from the chairs,
ladies and gentlemen. The tests are all over now. What did they show,
Whiting?"

The student read what he had been noting in the next room. At the
production of the coat during the demonstration of the markings of
the bullet, Mrs. Parker had betrayed great emotion, Mr. Bruce had done
likewise, and nothing more than ordinary emotion had been noted for the
rest of us. Miss La Neige's automatic record during the tracing out of
the sending of the note to Parker had been especially unfavourable to
her; Mr. Bruce showed almost as much excitement; Mrs. Parker very
little and Downey very little. It was all set forth in curves drawn by
self-recording pens on regular ruled paper. The student had merely noted
what took place in the lecture-room as corresponding to these curves.

"At the mention of the noiseless gun," said Kennedy, bending over the
record, while the student pointed it out to him and we leaned forward to
catch his words, "I find that the curves of Miss La Neige, Mrs. Parker,
and Mr. Downey are only so far from normal as would be natural. All of
them were witnessing a thi