“Yes there is!” I cut in, sitting up, wide awake now. “That’s our tenth clue—the one we’re going to follow from now on. That list was, except for Gantvoort’s name and address, a fake. Our people would have found at least one of the five people whose names were on it if it had been on the level. But they didn’t find the least trace of any of them. And two of the addresses were of street numbers that didn’t exist!
“That list was faked up, put in the wallet with the clippings and twenty dollars—to make the play stronger—and planted in the road near the car to throw us off-track. And if that’s so, then it’s a hundred to one that the rest of the things were cooked up too.
“From now on I’m considering all those nine lovely clues as nine bum steers. And I’m going just exactly contrary to them. I’m looking for a man whose name isn’t Emil Bonfils, and whose initials aren’t either E or B; who isn’t French, and who wasn’t in Paris in 1902. A man who hasn’t light hair, doesn’t carry a .45-calibre pistol, and has no interest in Personal advertisements in newspapers. A man who didn’t kill Gantvoort to recover anything that could have been hidden in a shoe or on a collar button. That’s the sort of a guy I’m hunting for now!”
The detective-sergeant screwed up his little green eyes reflectively and scratched his head.
“Maybe that ain’t so foolish!” he said. “You might be right at that. Suppose you are—what then? That Dexter kitten didn’t do it—it cost her three-quarters of a million. Her brother didn’t do it—he’s in New York. And, besides, you don’t croak a guy just because you think he’s too old to marry your sister. Charles Gantvoort? He and his wife are the only ones who make any money out of the old man dying before the new will was signed. We have only their word for it that Charles was home that night. The servants didn’t see him between eight and eleven. You were there, and you didn’t see him until eleven. But me and you both believe