the first time. The tapes. It _was_ the tapes. But even without that I
ought to have known! The answer was there, you handed it to us, but it
was like looking straight into the sun--"

He paused. Did he expect Beardsley to say something? Beardsley looked up
at him and blinked.

* * * * *

"_Motives_," Pederson said accusingly. "There was your theme from the
first! You were relentless, you pursued it to perfection, you laid our
motives bare and you beat them raw, each and every one. Oh, I grant you
it was masterful! It was the Beardsley of old! You managed to keep us
off balance every moment--" He wet his lips. "What was it, Beardsley? A
compulsion, some grotesque need to squeeze us all down to microscopic
size first? Oh, you enjoyed doing that! I watched you. You enjoyed it in
a way that--" He shook his head, glanced sorrowfully at the
equate-panel. "And this ... was it all for this? An achievement--an
absurdity. Ellery Sherlock!" he said with a shudder. "In Heaven's name,
WHY? You didn't really expect to carry it off? No, don't answer! It's
not important now--"

Beardsley shrugged in remote annoyance. Must the man use such puerile
methods?

"Not important," Pederson repeated, and stood caught in a startled
wonderment. "Because you see, Beardsley, I just happen to remember
something from the _whodunits_! That surprises you? So long ago, I can't
quite recall who said it; but it was a rather good exposition of logic,
something to the effect that when you've exhausted the possible, all the
possible--that which remains--_no matter how impossible it may
seem_--must be the truth!"

His head lifted; his gaze bored into Beardsley's and his voice was
tight with meaning. "And I'd say we have come full circle, wouldn't you?
You will have to admit, you did a _real good job of eliminating_!"

Beardsley managed to smile, even as his mind jarred a little. Even as he
met Pederson's gaze and saw the compassion there, the acceptance there,
the understanding and boundless regret. For a split second something
leaped unspoken between them, as if doors in both their minds had opened
and closed again.

He turned away wordlessly. Close as Pederson had come, even he was an
irrelevance now. _But ECAIAC didn't_ know. Poor Ekky! Her first real
failure, a fiasco--she really deserved a better fate. Beardsley's heart
went out to her, as he observed Arnold in his defeat and Mandleco in his
frustration and the h