The detective gave another jarring, mirthless laugh.  “And that he took the Union Bank money out of the safe, I suppose?” he jeered.  “No, Miss Van Gorder.”

He wheeled on the Doctor now.

“Ask the Doctor who took the Union Bank money out of that safe!” he thundered.  “Ask the Doctor who attacked me downstairs in the living-room, knocked me senseless, and locked me in the billiard room!”

There was an astounded silence.  The detective added a parting shot to his indictment of the Doctor.

“The next time you put handcuffs on a man be sure to take the key out of his vest pocket,” he said, biting off the words.

Rage and consternation mingled on the Doctor’s countenance—­on the faces of the others astonishment was followed by a growing certainty.  Only Miss Cornelia clung stubbornly to her original theory.

“Perhaps I’m an obstinate old woman,” she said in tones which obviously showed that if so she was rather proud of it, “but the Doctor and all the rest of us were locked in the living-room not ten minutes ago!”

“By the Bat, I suppose!” mocked Anderson.

“By the Bat!” insisted Miss Cornelia inflexibly.  “Who else would have fastened a dead bat to the door downstairs?  Who else would have the bravado to do that?  Or what you call the imagination?”

In spite of himself Anderson seemed to be impressed.

“The Bat, eh?” he muttered, then, changing his tone, “You knew about this hidden room, Wells?” he shot at the Doctor.

“Yes.”  The Doctor bowed his head.

“And you knew the money was in the room?”

“Well, I was wrong, wasn’t I?” parried the Doctor.  “You can look for yourself.  That safe is empty.”

The detective brushed his evasive answer aside.

“You were up in this room earlier tonight,” he said in tones of apparent certainty.

“No, I couldn’t get up!” the Doctor still insisted, with strange violence for a man who had already admitted such damning knowledge.

The detective’s face was a study in disbelief.

“You know where that money is, Wells, and I’m going to find it!”

This last taunt seemed to goad the Doctor beyond endurance.

“Good God!” he shouted recklessly.  “Do you suppose if I knew where it is, I’d be here?  I’ve had plenty of chances to get away!  No, you can’t pin anything on me, Anderson!  It isn’t criminal to have known that room is here.”

He paused, trembling with anger and, curiously enough, with an anger that seemed at least half sincere.

“Oh, don’t be so damned virtuous!” said the detective brutally.  “Maybe you haven’t been upstairs but—­unless I miss my guess, you know who was!”

The Doctor’s face changed a little.

“What about Richard Fleming?” persisted the detective scornfully.

The Doctor drew himself up.

“I never killed him!” he said so impressively that even Bailey’s faith in his guilt was shaken.  “I don’t even own a revolver!”