Page:The Viaduct Murder (1926).pdf/161

" It seems," said Carmichael, blinking through his spectacles, "that I have been mistaken. My old tutor always used to say to me⁠—that was Benger: I suppose he'd be before your time, Gordon? Of course he was⁠—Benger always used to say to me, 'Mr. Carmichael, always follow your nose. You've got a straight nose, Mr. Carmichael, but a crooked brain.' Very witty old chap he was, Benger, always saying things like that."

"It was a dashed funny mistake, too," mused Reeves. "Do you realize that, quite possibly, Davenant may have stood behind that hole in the wall and heard us coming solemnly to the conclusion that he didn't exist? That he never had existed, except as a sort of spiritual projection of old Brotherhood, and now, consequently, he had ceased to exist?"

"And what is still more singular," said Carmichael, "is that so far from helping the cause of justice, we seem to have actually hindered it. For I take it there can be little doubt that it was our tapping and measuring upstairs which put Davenant on his guard and made him bolt."