Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/51

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THE MAN IN THE ROOM
31

Dr. Joslyn's hands clenched and Branower drew toward his wife as Reiland took the papers and examined them earnestly. But the old professor raised a puzzled face.

"Luther," he appealed, "to me these show nothing! Margaret's normal association-time for innocent words, as you established at the start, is about two and one-half seconds. She did not exceed that in any of the words with guilty associations which you put to her. From these results, I should say, it is scientifically impossible that she even knows her father is accused. Her replies indicate nothing unless—unless," he paused, painfully, "because she could associate nothing with my name you consider that implies—"

"That you are so close to her that at your name, as at the name of her father, the emotion was very deep, Dr. Reiland," the young man interrupted. "But do not look only at Margaret's associations! Tell us, instead, what Dr. Joslyn's and Mr. Branower's show!"

"Dr. Joslyn's and Mr. Branower's?"

"Yes! For they show, do they not—unconsciously, but scientifically and quite irrefutably—that Dr. Joslyn could not possibly have been concerned in any way with those notes, part of which were due and paid upon the fourteenth of October; but that Mr. Branower has a far from innocent association with them, and with the twenty-fifth of the month, on which the rest were paid!"

He swung toward the trustee. "So, Mr. Branower, you were the man in the room Sunday night! You, to save the rascal Harrison, your wife's brother