h a
smile. "You've heard of city detectives and their ways, and you're
thinking to yourself that a Norfolk man is more than a match for any of
them."

This sally was so akin to what was passing in the superintendent's mind
that a grim smile momentarily relaxed his rugged features.

"My thoughts are my own, I suppose," he said.

"Not when you've just given them away," replied Colwyn, in a bantering
tone. "My dear Galloway, your ingenuous countenance is a mirror to your
mind, in which he who runs may read. But you are quite wrong in
suspecting me. I have no ulterior motive. My only interest in this
crime--or in any crime--is to solve it. Anybody can have the credit, as
far as I am concerned. Newspaper notoriety is nothing to me."

"You've managed to get a good deal of it without looking for it, then,"
retorted the superintendent cannily. "It was only the other day I was
reading a long article in one of the London newspapers about you,
praising you for tracking the criminals in the Treasury Bonds case. The
police were not mentioned."

"Fame--or notoriety--sometimes comes to those who seek it least,"
replied the detective genially. "I assure you that article came unasked.
I'm a stranger to the political art of keeping sweet with the
journalists--it was a statesman, you know, who summed up gratitude as a
lively sense of favours to come. Now, in this case, let us play fair,
actuated by the one desire to see that justice is done. This case does
not strike me as quite such a simple affair as it seems to you. You
approach it with a preconceived theory to which you are determined to
adhere. Your theory is plausible and convincing--to some extent--but
that is all the more reason why you should examine and test every link
in the chain. You cannot solve difficult points by ignoring them and, to
my mind, there are some difficult and perplexing features about this
case which do not altogether fit in with your theory."

"If my mind is an open book to you perhaps you'll tell me what my theory
is," responded Superintendent Galloway, sourly.

"Yes; that's a fair challenge." The detective pushed back his chair, and
stood with his back against the mantelpiece, with a cigar in his mouth.
"Your theory in this case is that chance and opportunity have made the
crime and the criminal. Chance brings this young man Ronald to this
lonely Norfolk inn, and sees to it that he is allowed to remain when the
landlord wants to turn him away. Chanc