said. "You act as if Virginia belonged to you.
We've all been working our heads off over this business, and you come in
at the last moment and quarrel with our data. You can go over tomorrow
morning and collect your own evidence if you think it's so far superior
to anyone else's. The marks are just as they were. Boards have been laid
over them and nothing's been disturbed."

"You're rather done up, old man," Terry remarked, smiling across at me
good-humoredly. "Of course it's quite on the cards that Cat-Eye Mose
committed the crime--but there are a number of objections. As I
understand it, he has the reputation of being a harmless, peaceable
fellow not very bright but always good-natured. He never resented an
injury, was never known to quarrel with anyone, took what was given him
and said thank you. He loved Colonel Gaylord and watched over his
interests as jealously as a dog. Well now, is a man who has had this
reputation all his life, a man whom everybody trusts, very likely to go
off the hook as suddenly as that and--with no conceivable
motive--brutally kill the master he has served so faithfully? A man's
future is in a large measure determined by his past."

"That may all be true enough," I said, "but it is very possible that
people were deceived in Mose. I have been suspicious of him from the
moment I laid eyes on him. You may think it unfair to judge a man from
his physical appearance, but I wish you could once see Cat-Eye Mose
yourself, and you would know what I mean. The people around here are
used to him and don't notice it so much, but his eyes are
yellow--positively yellow, and they narrow in the light just like a
cat's. One night he drove Radnor and me home from a party, and I could
actually see his eyes shining in the dark. It's the most gruesome thing
I ever saw; and take that on top of his habits--he carries snakes around
in the front of his shirt--really, one suspects him of anything."

"I hope he isn't dead," Terry murmured wistfully. "I'd like a personal
interview."

He sat sunk down in his chair for several minutes intently examining the
end of his fountain pen.

"Well," he said rousing himself, "it's time we had a shy at the ghost.
We must find out in what way Radnor and Mose were connected with him,
and in what way he was connected with the robbery. Radnor could help us
considerably if he would only talk--the fact that he won't talk is very
suggestive. We'll get at the truth without him, though