cat.

"You don't think I'm such a fool as to tell you? But you ain't so safe
nor clever as you think," and, with another irritating smile, he went
out.

"He's a regular snake," said Gorby to himself, as the door closed on
his brother detective; "but he's bragging now. There isn't a link
missing in the chain of evidence against Fitzgerald, so I defy him. He
can do his worst."

At eight o'clock on that night the soft-footed and soft-voiced
detective presented himself at Calton's office. He found the lawyer
impatiently waiting for him. Kilsip closed the door softly, and then
taking a seat opposite to Calton, waited for him to speak. The lawyer,
however, first handed him a cigar, and then producing a bottle of
whisky and two glasses from some mysterious recess, he filled one and
pushed it towards the detective. Kilsip accepted these little
attentions with the utmost gravity, yet they were not without their
effect on him, as the keen-eyed lawyer saw. Calton was a great believer
in diplomacy, and never lost an opportunity of inculcating it into
young men starting in life. "Diplomacy," said Calton, to one young
aspirant for legal honours, "is the oil we cast on the troubled waters
of social, professional, and political life; and if you can, by a
little tact, manage mankind, you are pretty certain to get on in this
world."

Calton was a man who practised what he preached. He believed Kilsip to
have that feline nature, which likes to be stroked, to be made much of,
and he paid him these little attentions, knowing full well they would
bear their fruit. He also knew that Kilsip entertained no friendly
feeling for Gorby, that, in fact, he bore him hatred, and he determined
that this feeling which existed between the two men, should serve him
to the end he had in view.

"I suppose," he said, leaning back in his chair, and watching the
wreaths of blue smoke curling from his cigar, "I suppose you know all
the ins and the outs of the hansom cab murder?"

"I should rather think so," said Kilsip, with a curious light in his
queer eyes. "Why, Gorby does nothing but brag about it, and his
smartness in catching the supposed murderer!"

"Aha!" said Calton, leaning forward, and putting his arms on the table.
"Supposed murderer. Eh! Does that mean that he hasn't been convicted by
a jury, or that you think that Fitzgerald is innocent?"

Kilsip stared hard at the lawyer, in a vague kind of way, slowly
rubbing his hands together.

"