have anybody do little things for him; he hated
to have servants tag around after him unless he wanted them. And
although Manderson was as careful about his clothes as any man I ever
knew, and his shoes--well, sir, the amount of money he spent on shoes
was sinful--in spite of that, I tell you, he never had a valet. He never
liked to have anybody touch him. All his life nobody ever shaved him."

"I've heard something of that," Trent remarked. "Why was it, do you
think?"

"Well," Mr. Bunner answered slowly, "it was the Manderson habit of mind,
I guess; a sort of temper of general suspicion and jealousy. They say
his father and grandfather were just the same.... Like a dog with a
bone, you know, acting as if all the rest of creation was laying for a
chance to steal it. He didn't really _think_ the barber would start in
to saw his head off; he just felt there was a possibility that he
_might_, and he was taking no risks. Then again in business he was
always convinced that somebody else was after his bone--which was true
enough a good deal of the time; but not all the time. The consequence of
that was that the old man was the most cautious and secret worker in the
world of finance; and that had a lot to do with his success, too.... But
that doesn't amount to being a lunatic, Mr. Trent; not by a long way.
You ask me if Manderson was losing his mind before he died. I say I
believe he was just worn out with worrying over something, and was
losing his nerve."

Trent smoked thoughtfully. He wondered how much Mr. Bunner knew of the
domestic difficulty in his chief's household, and decided to put out a
feeler. "I understood that he had trouble with his wife."

"Sure," replied Mr. Bunner. "But do you suppose a thing like that was
going to upset Sig Manderson that way? No, sir! He was a sight too big a
man to be all broken up by any worry of that kind."

Trent looked half-incredulously into the eyes of the young man. But
behind all their shrewdness and intensity he saw a massive innocence.
Mr. Bunner really believed a serious breach between husband and wife to
be a minor source of trouble for a big man.

"What _was_ the trouble between them?" Trent inquired.

"You can search me," Mr. Bunner replied briefly. He puffed at his cigar.
"Marlowe and I have often talked about it, and we could never make out a
solution. I had a notion at first," said Mr. Bunner in a lower voice,
leaning forward, "that the old man was disappointed and