dly, as perhaps you
know. Then he went off with Mr. Marlowe. I thought it odd he should need
money on Sunday night, but I soon forgot about it. I never remembered it
again until now."

"It was curious, certainly," said Trent, staring into the distance. Mr.
Cupples began to speak to his niece of the arrangements for the inquest,
and Trent moved away to where Marlowe was pacing slowly upon the lawn.
The young man seemed relieved to talk about the coming business of the
day. Though he still seemed tired out and nervous, he showed himself not
without a quiet humor in describing the pomposities of the local police
and the portentous airs of Dr. Stock. Trent turned the conversation
gradually toward the problem of the crime, and all Marlowe's gravity
returned.

"Bunner has told me what he thinks," he said when Trent referred to the
American's theory. "I don't find myself convinced by it, because it
doesn't really explain some of the oddest facts. But I have lived long
enough in the United States to know that such a stroke of revenge, done
in a secret, melodramatic way, is not an unlikely thing. It is quite a
characteristic feature of certain sections of the labor movement there.
Americans have a taste and a talent for that sort of business. Do you
know 'Huckleberry Finn?'"

"Do I know my own name?" exclaimed Trent.

"Well, I think the most American thing in that great American epic is
Tom Sawyer's elaboration of an extremely difficult and romantic scheme,
taking days to carry out, for securing the escape of the nigger Jim,
which could have been managed quite easily in twenty minutes. You know
how fond they are of lodges and brotherhoods. Every college club has its
secret signs and handgrips. You've heard of the Know-Nothing movement in
politics, I dare say, and the Ku Klux Klan. Then look at Brigham Young's
penny-dreadful tyranny in Utah, with real blood. The founders of the
Mormon state were of the purest Yankee stock in America; and you know
what they did. It's all part of the same mental tendency. Americans make
fun of it among themselves. For my part, I take it very seriously."

"It can have a very hideous side to it, certainly," said Trent, "when
you get it in connection with crime. Or with vice. Or even mere luxury.
But I have a sort of sneaking respect for the determination to make life
interesting and lively in spite of civilization. To return to the matter
in hand, however: has it struck you as a possibility that