r two Folliot sat joggling his leg--a bad sign in him of
rising temper if Bryce had but known it. While he remained silent he
watched Bryce narrowly, and when he spoke, his voice was calm as ever.

"And what use do you intend to put your knowledge to, if one may ask?"
he inquired, half sneeringly. "You said just now that you'd no doubt
that man Glassdale could be bought, and I'm inclining to think that
you're one of those men that have their price. What is it?"

"We've not come to that," retorted Bryce. "You're a bit mistaken. If I
have my price, it's not in the same commodity that Glassdale would want.
But before we do any talking about that sort of thing, I want to add to
my stock of knowledge. Look here! We'll be candid. I don't care a snap
of my fingers that Brake, or Braden's dead, or that Collishaw's dead,
nor if one had his neck broken and the other was poisoned, but--whose
hand was that which the mason, Varner, saw that morning, when Brake was
flung out of that doorway? Come, now!--whose?"

"Not mine, my lad!" answered Folliot, confidently. "That's a fact?"

Bryce hesitated, giving Folliot a searching look. And Folliot nodded
solemnly. "I tell you, not mine!" he repeated. "I'd naught to do with
it!"

"Then who had?" demanded Bryce. "Was it the other man--Flood? And if so,
who is Flood?"

Folliot got up from his chair and, cigar between his lips and hands
under the tails of his old coat, walked silently about the quiet room
for awhile. He was evidently thinking deeply, and Bryce made no attempt
to disturb him. Some minutes went by before Folliot took the cigar from
his lips and leaning against the chimneypiece looked fixedly at his
visitor.

"Look here, my lad!" he said, earnestly. "You're no doubt, as you say, a
good hand at finding things out, and you've doubtless done a good bit of
ferreting, and done it well enough in your own opinion. But there's
one thing you can't find out, and the police can't find out either, and
that's the precise truth about Braden's death. I'd no hand in it--it
couldn't be fastened on to me, anyhow."

Bryce looked up and interjected one word.

"Collishaw?"

"Nor that, neither," answered Folliot, hastily. "Maybe I know something
about both, but neither you nor the police nor anybody could fasten me
to either matter! Granting all you say to be true, where's the positive
truth?"

"What about circumstantial evidence," asked Bryce.

"You'd have a job to get it," retorted Fol