“What were they then?”

“Elaborate and deliberate fictions, Mark.”

At this challenge Brendon felt a hot wave of colour mount his cheek; but the other was far too generous and genial a spirit ever to seek any triumph over a younger man.  Neither did Brendon feel angry with Mr. Ganns even though his remarks were provocative enough.  He was angry with himself.  Peter, however, knew his power.  He read the detective’s mind like a book and well understood that, both by his position and rank, Mark must be far too good a man to chafe at the criticism of a better than himself.  He explained.

“Where I’ve got the pull on you, for the minute, is merely because I’ve been in the world a few years longer.  A time’s coming when you’ll talk to your juniors as I can talk to you; and they’ll listen, with all proper respect and attention, as you are listening.  When you are my age, you’ll command that perfect confidence which I command.  Folks can’t trust youth all the way; but you’ll win to it; and believe me, in our business, there’s no greater asset than the power to command absolute trust.  You can’t pretend to that power if you haven’t got it.  Human nature damn soon sees through you, if you’re pretending what you don’t command.  But I’m playing straight across the board, Mark, as my custom is, and I know you are too sane and ambitious a lad to let false pride or self-assurance resent my calling you an ass over this thing.”

“Prove it, Ganns, and I’ll be the first to climb down.  I know I’ve been an ass for that matter—­knew it long ago,” confessed Brendon.

“Yes, I’ll prove it—­that’s easy.  But what’s going to be harder is to find out why you’ve been an ass.  You’ve no right to be an ass.  It’s unlike your record and unlike your looks and your general make-up of mind.  I mostly read a strange man’s brain through his eyes; and your eyes do you justice.  So perhaps you’ll tell me presently where you went off your rocker.  Or perhaps you don’t know and I shall have to tell you—­when I find the nigger in the woodpile.  Now take a look round, and its dollars to doughnuts you’ll begin to see the light.”

He paused again, applied himself to his gold box, and then proceeded.

“To put it bluntly and drop everybody else but you out of it, for the minute, you went on false assumption from the kick-off, Brendon.  To start wrong was not strange.  I should have done exactly the same and nobody outside a detective story would have done differently; but to go on wrong—­to pile false assumption on false assumption in face of your own reasoning powers and native wits—­that strikes me as a very curious catastrophe.”

“But you can’t get away from facts.”

“Nothing easier, surely.  You said good-bye to facts when you left Princetown.  You don’t know the facts any more than I do—­or anybody but those responsible for the appearances.  You have assumed that the phenomena observed by yourself and reported by other professionals and various members of the public were facts, whereas a little solid thinking must have convinced you that they couldn’t be.  You didn’t give your reason a chance, Mark.