office; had
I recalled to Dr. Heath the curious case of Mrs. Spotts, and then
identified Brotherson as the man whose window fronted hers from the
opposite tenement, a diversion might have been created and the outcome
been different. But I feared the experiment. I'm not sufficiently in
with the Chief as yet, nor yet with the Inspector. They might not have
called me a fool--you may; but that's different--and they might have
listened, but it would doubtless have been with an air I could not have
held up against, with that fellow's eyes fixed mockingly on mine. For
he and I are pitted for a struggle, and I do not want to give him the
advantage of even a momentary triumph. He's the most complete master
of himself of any man I ever met, and it will take the united brain
and resolution of the whole force to bring him to book--if he ever is
brought to book, which I doubt. What do you think about it?"

"That you have given me an antidote against old age," was the ringing
and unexpected reply, as the thoughtful, half-puzzled aspect of the old
man yielded impulsively to a burst of his early enthusiasm. "If we can
get a good grip on the thread you speak of, and can work ourselves along
by it, though it be by no more than an inch at a time, we shall yet make
our way through this labyrinth of undoubted crime and earn for ourselves
a triumph which will make some of these raw and inexperienced young
fellows about us stare. Sweetwater, coincidences are possible. We run
upon them every day. But coincidence in crime! that should make work for
a detective, and we are not afraid of work. There's my hand for my end
of the business."

"And here's mine."

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

XIII. TIME, CIRCUMSTANCE, 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 se