all about his running off to sea. Was near going with him. Old man
Shackford never liked Dick, who was a proud beggar; they couldn't
pull together, down to the last,--both of a piece. They had a jolly
rumpus a little while before the old man was fixed.

Mr. Taggett pricked up his ears at this.

A rumpus? How did Durgin know that? A girl told him. What girl? A
girl he was sweet on. What was her name? Well, he didn't mind telling
her name; it was Molly Hennessey. She was going through Welch's Court
one forenoon,--may be it was three days before the strike,--and saw
Dick Shackford bolt out of the house, swinging his arms and swearing
to himself at an awful rate. Was Durgin certain that Molly Hennessey
had told him this? Yes, he was ready to take his oath on it.

Here, at last, was something that looked like a glimmer of
daylight.

It was possible that Durgin or the girl had lied; but the story
had an air of truth to it. If it were a fact that there had recently
been a quarrel between these cousins, whose uncousinly attitude
towards each other was fast becoming clear to Mr. Taggett, then here
was a conceivable key to an enigma which had puzzled him.

The conjecture that Lemuel Shackford had himself torn up the
will--if it was a will, for this still remained in dispute--had never
been satisfactory to Mr. Taggett. He had accepted it because he was
unable to imagine an ordinary burglar pausing in the midst of his
work to destroy a paper in which he could have no concern. But
Richard Shackford would have the liveliest possible interest in the
destruction of a document that placed a vast estate beyond his reach.
Here was a motive on a level with the crime. That money had been
taken, and that the fragments of the will had been carelessly thrown
into a waste-paper basket, just as if the old man himself had thrown
them there, was a stroke of art which Mr. Taggett admired more and
more as he reflected upon it.

He did not, however, allow himself to lay too much stress on these
points; for the paper might turn out to be merely an expired lease,
and the girl might have been quizzing Durgin. Mr. Taggett would have
given one of his eye-teeth just then for ten minutes with Mary
Hennessey. But an interview with her at this stage was neither
prudent nor easily compassed.

"If I have not struck a trail," writes Mr. Taggett, "I have come
upon what strongly resembles one; the least I can do is to follow it.
My first move must be to i