ct which prevented its more frequent commission.
But Barrant reflected that in his experience suicides were generally
people who had been broken by life or were bored with it. Men of action or
intellect rarely committed suicide, not because they valued life highly,
but because they had so much to do in their brief span that they hadn't
time to think about putting an end to it. Death usually overtook them in
the midst of their schemes.

Robert Turold was not a man of intellect or action, but he belonged to a
type which, as a rule, cling to life: the type from which zealots and
bigots spring--men with a single idea. Such men shrink from the idea of
destroying the vital engine by which their idea is driven forward. Their
ego is too pronounced for that.

It was true that Robert Turold believed he had realized the aim for which
he had lived, and therefore, in a sense, had nothing more to live for. But
that point of view was too coldly logical for human nature. Its
presumption was only applicable to a higher order of beings. No man had
ever committed suicide upon achieving the summit of an ambition. There
were always fresh vistas opening before the human mind.

Barrant left the study for the opposite room where the body of Robert
Turold had been taken. It was his bedroom, and he had been laid upon the
bed.

Death had not come to him easily. His harsh features were set in a stern
upward frown, and the lower lip was slightly caught between the teeth, as
though bitten in the final rending of the spirit. But Barrant had seen too
much of violent death to be repelled by any death mask, however repellent.

He eyed the corpse closely, and then proceeded to examine the death wound.
In doing so he had to move the body, and a portion of the sleeve fell
back, exposing the left arm to the elbow. Barrant was about to replace it
when his eye lighted upon a livid mark on the arm. He rolled back the
garment until the arm lay bare to the shoulder. The disclosure revealed
four faint livid marks running parallel across the arm, just above the
elbow.

The arms had been straightened to the body to the elbows, and then crossed
decorously on the breast. Barrant walked round to the other side of the
bed, knelt down by the edge of it, and examined the underneath part of the
arm. A single livid mark was imprinted upon it.

The inference was unmistakable. The four upper marks were fingerprints,
and the lower one a thumb mark. Somebody had caught