"
"You claim this was pure coincidence?" Fitch demanded. "A ten-point
coincidence: Event of assassination, year of the event, place,
circumstances, name of assassin, nationality of assassin, manner of
killing, exact type of weapon used, guards killed and wounded along
with Khalid, and fate of the assassin. If that's a simple and
plausible coincidence, so's dealing ten royal flushes in succession in
a poker game. Tom, you figured that out; what did you say the odds
against it were?"
"Was all that actually stated by Doctor Chalmers a month ago?" one of
the trustees asked, incredulously.
"It absolutely was. Look here, Mr. Dacre, gentlemen." Fitch came
forward, unzipping his briefcase and pulling out papers. "Here are the
signed statements of each of Doctor Chalmers' twenty-three Modern
History Four students, all made and dated before the assassination.
You can refer to them as you please; they're in alphabetical order.
And here." He unfolded a sheet of graph paper a yard long and almost
as wide. "Here's a tabulated summary of the boys' statements. All
agreed on the first point, the fact of the assassination. All agreed
that the time was sometime this year. Twenty out of twenty-three
agreed on Basra as the place.
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