mark:

"I'm just in the mood to settle that question. This last failure to my
account ought to make me an excellent judge of another's folly. I've
meddled with the old business for the last time, Sweetwater. You'll have
to go it lone from now on. The Department has no more work for Ebenezar
Gryce, or rather Ebenezar Gryce will make no more fool attempts to
please them. Strange that a man don't know when his time has come to
quit. I remember low I once scored Yeardsley for hanging on after he had
lost his grip; and here am I doing the same thing. But what's the matter
with you? Speak out, my boy. Something new in the wind?"

"No, Mr. Gryce; nothing new. It's the same old business. But, if what
I suspect is true, this same old business offers opportunities for
some very interesting and unusual effort. You're not satisfied with the
coroner's verdict in the Challoner case?"

"No. I'm satisfied with nothing that leaves all ends dangling. Suicide
was not proved. It seemed the only presumption possible, but it was not
proved. There was no blood-stain on that cutter-point."

"Nor any evidence that it had ever been there."

"No. I'm not proud of the chain which lacks a link where it should be
strongest."

"We shall never supply that link."

"I quite agree with you."

"That chain we must throw away."

"And forge another?"

Sweetwater approached and sat down.

"Yes; I believe we can do it; yet I have only one indisputable fact for
a starter. That is why I want you to tell me whether I'm growing daft or
simply adventurous. Mr. Gryce, I don't trust Brotherson. He has pulled
the wool over Dr. Heath's eyes and almost over those of Mr. Challoner.
But he can't pull it over mine. Though he should tell a story ten times
more plausible than the one with which he has satisfied the coroner's
jury, I would still listen to him with more misgiving than confidence.
Yet I have caught him in no misstatement, and his eye is steadier than
my own. Perhaps it is simply a deeply rooted antipathy on my part, or
the rage one feels at finding he has placed his finger on the wrong man.
Again it may be--"

"What, Sweetwater?"

"A well-founded distrust. Mr. Gryce, I'm going to ask you a question."

"Ask away. Ask fifty if you want to."

"No; the one may involve fifty, but it is big enough in itself to hold
our attention for a while. Did you ever hear of a case before, that in
some of its details was similar to this?"

"No, it stands alon