'
LAWTON, after making a melodramatic search for concealed listeners
at the doors: 'Now, friends, I have a revelation to make in Mrs.
Roberts's absence. I have found out the garotter--the assassin.'
ALL THE OTHERS: 'What!'
LAWTON: 'He has been secured--'
MRS. CRASHAW, severely: 'Well, I'm very glad of it.'
YOUNG BEMIS: 'By the police?'
MRS. BEMIS, incredulously: 'Papa!'
BEMIS: 'But there were several of them. Have they all been
arrested?'
LAWTON: 'There was only one, and none of him has been arrested.'
MRS. CRASHAW: 'Where is he, then?'
LAWTON: 'In this house.'
MRS. CRASHAW: 'Now, Dr. Lawton, you and I are old friends--I
shouldn't like to say HOW old--but if you don't instantly be
serious, I--I'll carry my rheumatism to somebody else.'
LAWTON: 'My DEAR Mrs. Crashaw, you know how much I prize that
rheumatism of yours! I will be serious--I will be only too serious.
The garotter is Mr. Roberts himself.'
ALL, horror-struck: 'Oh!'
LAWTON: 'He went out without his watch. He thought he was robbed,
but he wasn't. He ran after the supposed thief, our poor friend
Bemis here, and took Bemis's watch away, and brought it home for his
own.'
YOUNG BEMIS: 'Yes, but--'
MRS. BEMIS: 'But, papa--'
BEMIS: 'How do you know it? I can see how such a thing might
happen, but--how do you know it DID?'
LAWTON: 'I divined it.
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