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5
    D OCTOR CAMERON READ THE note aloud: “‘Sorry it was you.’” He turned the paper over and looked at the blank side, then looked at me. “With a bottle of Scotch?”
    “A small bottle, yes,” I said. “The seal hadn’t been broken, so I doubt it’s been tampered with.” Bob Gale and I, fresh from lunch, were sitting in front of the desk in Doctor Cameron’s office. I would have liked to spend longer in the dining room, till I’d seen everyone, but there was too much else to be done, including reporting this note. I had handed it over upon arrival, as the first order of business.
    “Very strange,” he said. He put the note on his desk, face up, and frowned down at it. “Very very strange.”
    “I take it none of the other victims has received this kind of note,” I said.
    “None at all, this is the first time. I don’t understand it.” He looked at me. “You’re assuming it’s from whoever is doing these things.”
    “I think it most likely,” I said. “Not necessarily so, but likely. The note doesn’t claim to be from the one who rigged the staircase. In fact, it doesn’t even claim the staircase was rigged. You could read it to be simply an expression of good will from someone who was sorry to see me get hurt. Sorry to see anybody get hurt.”
    Doctor Cameron shook his head. “An anonymous expression of sympathy. No, it doesn’t seem likely.”
    “It’s bound to be from the guilty one,” Bob Gale said. He was sitting on the sofa along the right-hand wall. “There’s nobody else it could be.”
    I turned and looked at him. “It’s not a hundred per cent. It’s ninety per cent, it’s enough so we can take a chance on making the assumption. Particularly if there haven’t been any other expressions of sympathy like this after the other accidents.”
    “None,” said Doctor Cameron.
    I said, “I don’t mean necessarily a note. Maybe a gift, like the Scotch, left anonymously in the victim’s room.”
    “Someone would have mentioned it,” the doctor said. “No, there’s been nothing like this before.”
    “All right,” I said. “Then that leads us to the question, why this time? If it is from the injurer, why didn’t he want me in particular to be caught by his booby trap?”
    “Maybe because you just got here,” Bob Gale said. “You weren’t really one of us yet, or something like that.”
    “I suppose that’s possible,” I said. “But it’s more likely he or she knows who I am and why I’m here.”
    “I don’t see how,” Doctor Cameron said.
    I said, “Either you or Bob must have mentioned it to somebody else. Somebody you could trust, not necessarily the injurer, but some innocent third party who then went and passed the story on in confidence to somebody else, who told somebody else, and by now maybe half the residents know about it.”
    Gale said, “Mr. Tobin, I swear to you I haven’t said a word to anybody, not a word. I know I acted silly in the dining room just now, but that was because I was excited that you were here, and I promise you that’s the only time I’ve slipped. And I didn’t tell anybody. I wouldn’t. I promised Doctor Cameron I wouldn’t, and he’ll tell you if I give him a promise I stick to it.” He was so serious and open it was impossible not to believe him.
    Doctor Cameron said, “No, Mr. Tobin, that isn’t the answer. I’m sure Bob didn’t say anything to anyone, and I know for certain I didn’t. I haven’t even told Doctor Fredericks, and I certainly don’t suspect my own assistant. But I knew that just what you said was likely to happen. I would tell one person, who would tell one person, and so on. Doctor Fredericks might have one specific individual here he felt needed to be warned against the danger, and he would tell that person, and the chain would be well on its way. That’s why I didn’t even let it get started. And I impressed just that very point on Bob. No, your secret is still a