human
And have you followed up any of the clues which you discovered yesterday, Mr. Deland, to the utter desolation of all my hopes and fears?
gpt
I'm afraid I have. Several of them. And yet--I don't know. Anyhow, I want you all to come along to the library again this morning--and for the last time. After to-day you ought not to be put to any further worry and inconvenience, my dear young lady. But what I want _you_ to do is to assemble all the members of the immediate household together for me, and tell them I've discovered a perfectly new clue altogether--and from a perfectly new person--someone who, so far as you or I know, has never even entered the house at all, at any time. So you see, that's not such bad news, is it?
human
You mean to say that--you mean to say that you can prove that neither Ross nor--Captain Macdonald is guilty of that terrible crime? she gave out in a shrill voice, shutting her hands together in her emotion, and breathing hard.
gpt
Oh, Mr. Deland, if you have only found out _that_----
human
Not quite so fast, please, he responded a trifle sternly.
gpt
I'm afraid I can't give you any of the facts yet. Only I want you to know that--in one direction, at any rate--you may have some cause to hope. That is, of course, if my deductions are correct. It all depends. Even a policeman can make a mistake--isn't that so, Mr. Narkom?--and find himself led away upon a false scent. It depends a lot upon the wiliness of the fox he's in pursuit of. And in this case, when there's a--animal's a female, one has the disadvantage of the woman's intuitive faculties and natural gifts of deceit. 'The female of the species'--you know what Kipling said, of course? That sounds rude, doesn't it? But it's amazingly true, all the same--yourself, I'm sure, always excepted.