a weakness in the
first position, was a mighty asset in the latter one, and he had won
an immense success.

Please understand that I set this down in no spirit of criticism. I
had known Godfrey rather intimately ever since the days when we were
thrown together in solving the Holladay case, and I admired sincerely
his ready wit, his quick insight, and his unshakable aplomb. He used
his imagination in a way which often caused me to reflect that the
police would be far more efficient if they possessed a dash of the
same quality; and I had noticed that they were usually glad of his
assistance, while his former connection with the force and his
careful maintenance of the friendships formed at that time gave him
an entree to places denied to less-fortunate reporters. I had never
known him to do a dishonourable thing--to fight for a cause he
thought unjust, to print a fact given to him in confidence, or to
make a statement which he knew to be untrue. Moreover, a lively sense
of humour made him an admirable companion, and it was this quality,
perhaps, which enabled him to receive Goldberger's thrust with a
good-natured smile.

"We've got our living to make, you know," he said. "We make it as
honestly as we can. What do _you_ think, Simmonds?"

"I think," said Simmonds, who, if he possessed an imagination, never
permitted it to be suspected, "that those little cuts on the hand are
merely an accident. They might have been caused in half a dozen ways.
Maybe he hit his hand on something when he fell; maybe he jabbed it
on a buckle; maybe he had a boil on his hand and lanced it with his
knife."

"What killed him, then?" Godfrey demanded.

"Poison--and it's in his stomach. We'll find it there."

"How about the odour?" Godfrey persisted.

"He spilled some of the poison on his hand as he lifted it to his
mouth. Maybe he had those cuts on his hand and the poison inflamed
them. Or maybe he's got some kind of blood disease."

Goldberger nodded his approval, and Godfrey smiled as he looked at
him.

"It's easy to find explanations, isn't it?" he queried.

"It's a blamed sight easier to find a natural and simple
explanation," retorted Goldberger hotly, "than it is to find an
unnatural and far-fetched one--such as how one man could kill another
by scratching him on the hand. I suppose you think this fellow was
murdered? That's what you said a minute ago."

"Perhaps I was a little hasty," Godfrey admitted, and I suspected
that