"This, with the private keys belonging to Mr.Mainwaring's library, was in that box at the bottom of the lake.

Do you consider Mrs.LaGrange or Hobson capable of planning and carrying out an affair so adroitly as that ?" "You've got me floored," the attorney answered, gazing at the proofs before him.

"Hobson I know nothing about; but that woman I believe could scheme to beat the very devil himself; and yet, Merrick, when you think of it, it must have taken time--considerable time--to plan a thing like that." "Or else," Merrick suggested, "it was the performance of an expert criminal; no bungling, no work of a green hand." Mr.Whitney started slightly, but the detective continued.

"Another point: Hobson, as you say, was the one man whom Hugh Mainwaring feared and who evidently had some hold upon him; would he then have dared denounce him as a liar and an impostor?
Would not his use of such terms imply that he was addressing one whom he considered a stranger and unacquainted with the facts in the case ?" "I see," the attorney replied quickly; "you have in mind Hobson's accomplice, the tall man with dark glasses." Merrick smiled.

"You are then inclined to the opinion that J.Henry Carruthers, who called in the afternoon, is identical with the so-called Jack Carroll who accompanied Hobson in the evening ?" "Certainly that is a reasonable supposition.