“I may be on the right road,” I said gloomily; “but I am stuck fast in one place and I see no chance of getting any farther.”

“But you have a quantity of data,” said Thorndyke. “You have all the facts that I had to start with, from which I constructed the hypothesis that I am now busily engaged in verifying. I have a few more data now, for ‘as money makes money’ so knowledge begets knowledge, and I put my original capital out to interest. Shall we tabulate the facts that are in our joint possession and see what they suggest?”

I grasped eagerly at the offer, though I had conned over my notes again and again.

Thorndyke produced a slip of paper from a drawer, and, uncapping his fountain-pen, proceeded to write down the leading facts, reading each aloud as soon as it was written.