alentin is an honest man, if being
mad for an arguable cause is honesty. But did you never see in that
cold, grey eye of his that he is mad! He would do anything, anything, to
break what he calls the superstition of the Cross. He has fought for
it and starved for it, and now he has murdered for it. Brayne's crazy
millions had hitherto been scattered among so many sects that they did
little to alter the balance of things. But Valentin heard a whisper that
Brayne, like so many scatter-brained sceptics, was drifting to us; and
that was quite a different thing. Brayne would pour supplies into the
impoverished and pugnacious Church of France; he would support six
Nationalist newspapers like The Guillotine. The battle was already
balanced on a point, and the fanatic took flame at the risk. He resolved
to destroy the millionaire, and he did it as one would expect the
greatest of detectives to commit his only crime. He abstracted the
severed head of Becker on some criminological excuse, and took it home
in his official box. He had that last argument with Brayne, that Lord
Galloway did not hear the end of; that failing, he led him out into the
sealed garden, talked about swordsmanship, used twigs and a sabre for
illustration, and--"

Ivan of the Scar sprang up. "You lunatic," he yelled; "you'll go to my
master now, if I take you by--"

"Why, I was going there," said Brown heavily; "I must ask him to
confess, and all that."

Driving the unhappy Brown before them like a hostage or sacrifice, they
rushed together into the sudden stillness of Valentin's study.

The great detective sat at his desk apparently too occupied to hear
their turbulent entrance. They paused a moment, and then something in
the look of that upright and elegant back made the doctor run forward
suddenly. A touch and a glance showed him that there was a small box of
pills at Valentin's elbow, and that Valentin was dead in his chair; and
on the blind face of the suicide was more than the pride of Cato.

The Queer Feet

If you meet a member of that select club, "The Twelve True Fishermen,"
entering the Vernon Hotel for the annual club dinner, you will observe,
as he takes off his overcoat, that his evening coat is green and not
black. If (supposing that you have the star-defying audacity to address
such a being) you ask him why, he will probably answer that he does it
to avoid being mistaken for a waiter. You will then retire crushed. But
you will le