human
I don't understand your suspicion of the state of affairs in the film vaults,
gpt
Why should Jack Gordon, the leading man, be down there?
human
That--that really is a cause for suspicion, isn't it.
gpt
Now, Walter, think a bit! We were crossing the yard, and so not apt to be overheard.
human
Granting that Gordon actually had been down there, why should the fact concern us? Manton explained that no negative or positive can be given out except upon order. There is nothing down there but film and so no other errand to bring the leading man to the vault except to get some scenes or pieces showing his own work, and that isn't likely.
gpt
Unless, I interrupted,
human
Gordon is the guilty man and wanted to get the snake film before we did.
gpt
How could that be? When we asked Manton about the Doctor Nagoya subject we went right down with him and procured it. I doubt anyone could have overheard us as we talked about it, in any case.
human
Remember, Craig, we went to the locker first and it was some little time before that fellow came out to unlock it and give us the key. And when you questioned Manton we were passing right by all of them. Any one could have heard the mention of the snake film.
gpt
I believe you're right, Walter. Or it is possible that the guilty person believed that the scenes taken out at Tarrytown, or those taken when Werner died, revealed something and so would have to be stolen or destroyed, and that they were kept in the vault. It is even possible --a gleam came into Kennedy's eyes--
human
It's damning to Gordon, all right,
gpt
On the contrary, Walter. Kennedy lowered his voice as we entered the building across the quadrangle and descended stairs leading directly into the basement.
human
We have mentioned over and over again the cleverness of our unknown criminal. That man, or woman, never would drop a cigarette case with his or her initials and leave without it, nor smoke a cigarette in a place he, or she, was not supposed to be.
gpt
What then?
human
It's a plant; a deliberate plant to throw suspicion upon Gordon.
gpt
Why upon Gordon?
human
I don't know that, unless because Gordon is supposed to have the best possible motive for killing Miss Lamar--his money troubles--and so becomes the logical man to throw the guilt upon.
gpt
As a matter of fact, Craig, why should the finding of that cigarette case be a cause for suspicion at all? That's what I didn't understand before.
human
Ordinarily it wouldn't be. But those open inner doors, the absence of the man in charge--isn't it possible that we interrupted an attempt not only to search for the particular damaging pieces of film, but perhaps to destroy the whole? If some one acted between the time I asked Manton about the snake film and the moment we arrived in the basement to get it, that some one had to move very fast.
gpt
In which case it might have been Gordon, after all. The cigarette stub may have been thrown in lighted to start a fire. He may not have had time to pick up the case, not knowing just where he dropped it.
human
It all shows the futility of trying to arrive at a conclusion without definite facts. That is where science is superior to deduction.
gpt
It's all a maze to me just now,