tention to the significance of certain apparently negligible
facts, and ranged the evidence in such a manner as to throw grave
suspicion upon a man who had presented himself as a witness. Sir James
Molloy had printed this letter in leaded type. The same evening he was
able to announce in the _Sun_ the arrest and full confession of the
incriminated man.

Sir James, who knew all the worlds of London, had lost no time in making
Trent's acquaintance. The two men got on well; for Trent possessed some
secret of native tact which had the effect of almost abolishing
differences of age between himself and others. The great rotary presses
in the basement of the _Record_ building had filled him with a new
enthusiasm: he had painted there, and Sir James had bought at sight,
what he called a machinery-scape in the manner of Heinrich Kley.

Then a few months later came the affair known as the Ilkley mystery. Sir
James had invited Trent to an emollient dinner, and thereafter offered
him what seemed to the young man a fantastically large sum for his
temporary services as special representative of the _Record_ at Ilkley.
"You could do it," the editor had urged. "You can write good stuff, and
you know how to talk to people, and I can teach you all the
technicalities of a reporter's job in half an hour. And you have a head
for a mystery; you have imagination and cool judgment along with it.
Think how it would feel if you pulled it off!" Trent had admitted that
it would be rather a lark; he had smoked, frowned, and at last convinced
himself that the only thing that held him back was fear of an unfamiliar
task. To react against fear had become a fixed moral habit with him, and
he had accepted Sir James's offer.

He had pulled it off. For the second time he had given the authorities a
start and a beating, and his name was on all tongues. He withdrew and
painted pictures. He felt no leaning towards journalism, and Sir James,
who knew a good deal about art, honorably refrained--as other editors
did not--from tempting him with a good salary. But in the course of a
few years he had applied to him perhaps thirty times for his services in
the unraveling of similar problems at home and abroad. Sometimes Trent,
busy with work that held him, had refused; sometimes he had been
forestalled in the discovery of the truth. But the result of his
irregular connection with the _Record_ had been to make his name one of
the best-known in England. It was char