"And here's mine."

Next minute the two heads were closer than ever together, and the business had begun.

XIII. TIME, CIRc.u.mSTANCE, AND A VILLAIN'S HEART

"Our first difficulty is this. We must prove motive. Now, I do not think it will be so very hard to show that this Brotherson cherished feelings of revenge towards Miss Challoner. But I have to acknowledge right here and now that the most skillful and vigourous pumping of the janitor and such other tenants of the Hicks Street tenement as I have dared to approach, fails to show that he has ever held any communication with Mrs. Spotts, or even knew of her existence until her remarkable death attracted his attention. I have spent all the afternoon over this, and with no result. A complete break in the chain at the very start."

"Humph! we will set that down, then, as so much against us."

"The next, and this is a bitter pill too, is the almost insurmountable difficulty already recognised of determining how a man, without approaching his victim, could manage to inflict a mortal stab in her breast. No cloak of complete invisibility has yet been found, even by the cleverest criminals."

"True. The problem is such as a nightmare offers. For years my dreams have been haunted by a gnome who proposes just such puzzles."

"But there's an answer to everything, and I'm sure there's an answer to this. Remember his business. He's an inventor, with startling ideas. So much I've seen for myself. You may stretch probabilities a little in his case; and with this conceded, we may add by way of off-set to the difficulties you mention, coincidences of time and circ.u.mstance, and his villainous heart. Oh, I know that I am prejudiced; but wait and see!

Miss Challoner was well rid of him even at the cost of her life."

"She loved him. Even her father believes that now. Some lately discovered letters have come to light to prove that she was by no means so heart free as he supposed. One of her friends, it seems, has also confided to him that once, while she and Miss Challoner were sitting together, she caught Miss Challoner in the act of scribbling capitals over a sheet of paper. They were all B's with the exception of here and there a neatly turned O, and when her friend twitted her with her fondness for these two letters, and suggested a pleasing monogram, Miss Challoner answered, 'O. B. (transferring the letters, as you see) are the initials of the finest man in the world.'"

"Gosh! has he heard this story?"

"Who?"

"The gentleman in question."

"Mr. Brotherson?"

"Yes."

"I don't think so. It was told me in confidence."

"Told you, Mr. Gryce? Pardon my curiosity."

"By Mr. Challoner."

"Oh! by Mr. Challoner."

"He is greatly distressed at having the disgraceful suggestion of suicide attached to his daughter's name. Notwithstanding the circ.u.mstances,--notwithstanding his full recognition of her secret predilection for a man of whom he had never heard till the night of her death, he cannot believe that she struck the blow she did, intentionally. He sent for me in order to inquire if anything could be done to reinstate her in public opinion. He dared not insist that another had wielded the weapon which laid her low so suddenly, but he asked if, in my experience, it had never been known that a woman, hyper-sensitive to some strong man's magnetic influence, should so follow his thought as to commit an act which never could have arisen in her own mind, uninfluenced. He evidently does not like Brotherson either."

"And what--what did you--say?" asked Sweet.w.a.ter, with a halting utterance and his face full of thought.

"I simply quoted the latest authority on hypnotism that no person even in hypnotic sleep could be influenced by another to do what was antagonistic to his natural instincts."

"Latest authority. That doesn't mean a final one. Supposing that it was hypnotism! But that wouldn't account for Mrs. Spotts' death. Her wound certainly was not a self-inflicted one."

"How can you be sure?"

"There was no weapon found in the room, or in the court. The snow was searched and the children too. No weapon, Mr. Gryce, not even a paper-cutter. Besides--but how did Mr. Challoner take what you said? Was he satisfied with this a.s.surance?"

"He had to be. I didn't dare to hold out any hope based on so unsubstantial a theory. But the interview had this effect upon me.

If the possibility remains of fixing guilt elsewhere than on Miss Challoner's inconsiderate impulse, I am ready to devote any amount of time and strength to the work. To see this grieving father relieved from the worst part of his burden is worth some effort and now you know why I have listened so eagerly to you. Sweet.w.a.ter, I will go with you to the Superintendent. We may not gain his attention and again we may. If we don't--but we won't cross that bridge prematurely. When will you be ready for this business?"

"I must be at Headquarters to-morrow."

"Good, then let it be to-morrow. A taxicab, Sweet.w.a.ter. The subway for the young. I can no longer manage the stairs."

XIV. A CONCESSION

"It is true; there seems to be something extraordinary in the coincidence."

Thus Mr. Brotherson, in the presence of the Inspector.

"But that is all there is to it," he easily proceeded. "I knew Miss Challoner and I have already said how much and how little I had to do with her death. The other woman I did not know at all; I did not even know her name. A prosecution based on grounds so flimsy as those you advance would savour of persecution, would it not?"

The Inspector, surprised by this unexpected attack, regarded the speaker with an interest rather augmented than diminished by his boldness. The smile with which he had uttered these concluding words yet lingered on his lips, lighting up features of a mould too suggestive of command to be a.s.sociated readily with guilt. That the impression thus produced was favourable, was evident from the tone of the Inspector's reply:

"We have said nothing about prosecution, Mr. Brotherson. We hope to avoid any such extreme measures, and that we may the more readily do so, we have given you this opportunity to make such explanations as the situation, which you yourself have characterised as remarkable, seems to call for."

"I am ready. But what am I called upon to explain? I really cannot see, sir. Knowing nothing more about either case than you do, I fear that I shall not add much to your enlightenment."

"You can tell us why with your seeming culture and obvious means, you choose to spend so much time in a second-rate tenement like the one in Hicks Street."

Again that chill smile preceding the quiet answer:

"Have you seen my room there? It is piled to the ceiling with books.

When I was a poor man, I chose the abode suited to my purse and my pa.s.sion for first-rate reading. As I grew better off, my time became daily more valuable. I have never seen the hour when I felt like moving that precious collection. Besides, I am a man of the people. I like the working cla.s.s, and am willing to be thought one of them. I can find time to talk to a hard-pushed mechanic as easily as to such members of the moneyed cla.s.s as I encounter on stray evenings at the Hotel Clermont. I have led--I may say that I am leading--a double life; but of neither am I ashamed, nor have I cause to be. Love drove me to ape the gentleman in the halls of the Clermont; a broad human interest in the work of the world, to live as a fellow among the mechanics of Hicks Street."

"But why make use of one name as a gentleman of leisure and quite a different one as the honest workman?"

"Ah, there you touch upon my real secret. I have a reason for keeping my ident.i.ty quiet till my invention is completed."

"A reason connected with your anarchistic tendencies?"

"Possibly." But the word was uttered in a way to carry little conviction. "I am not much of an anarchist," he now took the trouble to declare, with a careless lift of his shoulders. "I like fair play, but I shall never give you much trouble by my manner of insuring it. I have too much at stake. My invention is dearer to me than the overthrow of present inst.i.tutions. Nothing must stand in the way of its success, not even the satisfaction of inspiring terror in minds shut to every other species of argument. I have uttered my last speech; you can rely on me for that."

"We are glad to hear it, Mr. Dunn. Physical overthrow carries more than the immediate sufferer with it."

If this were meant as an irritant, it did not act successfully. The social agitator, the political demagogue, the orator whose honeyed tones had rung with biting invective in the ears of the United Brotherhood of the Awl, the Plane and the Trowel, simply bowed and calmly waited for the next attack.

Perhaps it was of a nature to surprise even him.

"We have no wish," continued the Inspector, "to probe too closely into concerns seemingly quite removed from the main issue. You say that you are ready, nay more, are even eager to answer all questions. You will probably be anxious then to explain away a discrepancy between your word and your conduct, which has come to our attention. You were known to have expressed the intention of spending the afternoon of Mrs. Spotts'