cent curiosity.

"That is called hypo-eliminator," said Trent as Mr. Cupples uncorked and
smelled at one of the bottles. "Very useful when you're in a hurry with
a negative. I shouldn't drink it, though, all the same. It eliminates
sodium hypophosphite, but I shouldn't wonder if it would eliminate human
beings too." He found a place for the last of the litter on the crowded
mantel-shelf, and came to sit before Mr. Cupples on the table. "The
great thing about a hotel sitting-room is that its beauty does not
distract the mind from work. It is no place for the May-fly pleasures of
a mind at ease. Have you ever been in this room before, Cupples? I have,
hundreds of times. It has pursued me all over England for years. I
should feel lost without it if, in some fantastic, far-off hotel, they
were to give me some other sitting-room. Look at this table-cover; there
is the ink I spilled on it when I had this room in Halifax. I burnt that
hole in the carpet when I had it in Ipswich. But I see they have mended
the glass over the picture of 'Silent Sympathy,' which I threw a boot at
in Banbury. I do all my best work here. This afternoon, for instance,
since the inquest, I have finished several excellent negatives. There is
a very good dark-room downstairs."

"The inquest--that reminds me," said Mr. Cupples, who knew that this
sort of talk in Trent meant the excitement of action, and was wondering
what he could be about. "I came in to thank you, my dear fellow, for
looking after Mabel this morning. I had no idea she was going to feel
ill after leaving the box; she seemed quite unmoved, and really she is a
woman of such extraordinary self-command, I thought I could leave her to
her own devices and hear out the evidence, which I thought it important
I should do. It was a very fortunate thing she found a friend to assist
her, and she is most grateful. She is quite herself again now."

Trent, with his hands in his pockets and a slight frown on his brow,
made no reply to this. "I tell you what," he said after a short pause,
"I was just getting to the really interesting part of the job when you
came in. Come: would you like to see a little bit of high-class police
work? It's the very same kind of work that old Murch ought to be doing
at this moment. Perhaps he is; but I hope to glory he isn't." He sprang
off the table and disappeared into his bedroom. Presently he came out
with a large drawing-board on which a number of heterogeneous obje