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"Gosh! has he heard this story?"

"Who?"

"The gentleman in question."

"Mr. Brotherson?"

"Yes."

"I don't think so. It was told me in confidence."

"Told you, Mr. Gryce? Pardon my curiosity."

"By Mr. Challoner."

"Oh! by Mr. Challoner."

"He is greatly distressed at having the disgraceful suggestion of
suicide attached to his daughter's name. Notwithstanding the
circumstances,--not--withstanding his full recognition of her
secret predilection for a man of whom he had never heard till the
night of her death, he cannot believe that she struck the blow she
did, intentionally. He sent for me in order to inquire if anything
could be done to reinstate her in public opinion. He dared not
insist that another had wielded the weapon which laid her low so
suddenly, but he asked if, in my experience, it had never been known
that a woman, hyper-sensitive to some strong man's magnetic influence,
should so follow his thought as to commit an act which never could
have arisen in her own mind, uninfluenced. He evidently does not
like Brotherson either."

"And what--what did you--say?" asked Sweetwater, with a halting
utterance and his face full of thought.

"I simply quoted the latest authority on hypnotism that no person
even in hypnotic sleep could be influenced by another to do what
was antagonistic to his natural instincts."

"Latest authority. That doesn't mean a final one. Supposing that
it was hypnotism! But that wouldn't account for Mrs. Spotts' death.
Her wound certainly was not a self-inflicted one."

"How can you be sure?"

"There was no weapon found in the room, or in the court. The snow
was searched and the children too. No weapon, Mr. Gryce, not even
a paper-cutter. Besides--but how did Mr. Challoner take what you
said? Was he satisfied with this assurance?"

"He had to be. I didn't dare to hold out any hope based on so
unsubstantial a theory. But the interview had this effect upon me.
If the possibility remains of fixing guilt elsewhere than on Miss
Challoner's inconsiderate impulse, I am ready to devote any amount
of time and strength to the work. To see this grieving father
relieved from the worst part of his burden is worth some effort and
now you know why I have listened so eagerly to you. Sweetwater, I
will go with you to the Superintendent. We may not gain his
attention and again we may. If we don't--but we won't cross that
bridge prematurely. When will you be ready for this business?"

"I must be at Headquarters to-morrow."

"Good, then let it be to-morrow. A taxicab, Sweetwater. The subway
for the young. I can no longer manage the stairs."

XIV

A CONCESSION

"It is true; there seems to be something extraordinary in the
coincidence."

Thus Mr. Brotherson, in the presence of the Inspector.

"But that is all there is to it," he easily proceeded. "I knew
Miss Challoner and I have already said how much and how little I
had to do with her death. The other woman I did not know at all;
I did not even know her name. A prosecution based on grounds so
flimsy as those you advance would savour of persecution, would
it not?"

The Inspector, surprised by this unexpected attack, regarded the
speaker with an interest rather augmented than diminished by his
boldness. The smile with which he had uttered these concluding
words yet lingered on his lips, lighting up features of a mould too
suggestive of command to be associated readily with guilt. That the
impression thus produced was favourable, was evident from the tone
of the Inspector's reply:

"We have said nothing about prosecution, Mr. Brotherson. We hope
to avoid any such extreme measures, and that we may the more readily
do so, we have given you this opportunity to make such explanations
as the situation, which you yourself have characterised as
remarkable, seems to call for."

"I am ready. But what am I called upon to explain? I really cannot
see, sir. Knowing nothing more about either case than you do, I
fear that I shall not add much to your enlightenment."

"You can tell us why with your seeming culture and obvious means,
you choose to spend so much time in a second-rate tenement like the
one in Hicks Street."

Again that chill smile preceding the quiet answer:

"Have you seen my room there? It is piled to the ceiling with books.
When I was a poor man, I chose the abode suited to my purse and my
passion for first-rate reading. As I grew better off, my time became
daily more valuable. I have never seen the hour when I felt like
moving that precious collection. Besides, I am a man of the people.
I like the working class, and am willing to be thought one of them.
I can find time to talk to a hard-pushed mechanic as easily as to
such members of the moneyed class as I encounter on stray evenings
at the Hotel Clermont. I have led--I may say that I am leading--a
double life; but of neither am I ashamed, nor have I cause to be.
Love drove me to ape the gentleman in the halls of the Clermont; a
broad human interest in the work of the world, to live as a fellow
among the mechanics of Hicks Street."

"But why make use of one name as a gentleman of leisure and quite
a different one as the honest workman?"

"Ah, there you touch upon my real secret. I have a reason for
keeping my identity quiet till my invention is completed."

"A reason connected with your anarchistic tendencies?"

"Possibly." But the word was uttered in a way to carry little
conviction. "I am not much of an anarchist," he now took the
trouble to declare, with a careless lift of his shoulders. "I like
fair play, but I shall never give you much trouble by my manner of
insuring it. I have too much at stake. My invention is dearer to
me than the overthrow of present institutions. Nothing must stand
in the way of its success, not even the satisfaction of inspiring
terror in minds shut to every other species of argument. I have
uttered my last speech; you can rely on me for that."

"We are glad to hear it, Mr. Dunn. Physical overthrow carries more
than the immediate sufferer with it."

If this were meant as an irritant, it did not act successfully. The
social agitator, the political demagogue, the orator whose honeyed
tones had rung with biting invective in the ears of the United
Brotherhood of the Awl, the Plane and the Trowel, simply bowed and
calmly waited for the next attack.

Perhaps it was of a nature to surprise even him.

"We have no wish," continued the Inspector, "to probe too closely
into concerns seemingly quite removed from the main issue. You say
that you are ready, nay more, are even eager to answer all questions.
You will probably be anxious then to explain away a discrepancy
between your word and your conduct, which has come to our attention.
You were known to have expressed the intention of spending the
afternoon of Mrs. Spotts' death in New York and were supposed to
have done so, yet you were certainly seen in the crowd which invaded
that rear building at the first alarm. Are you conscious of
possessing a double, or did you fail to cross the river as you
expected to?"

"I am glad this has come up." The tone was one of
self-congratulation which would have shaken Sweetwater sorely had
he been admitted to this unofficial examination. "I have never
confided to any one the story of my doings on that unhappy afternoon,
because I knew of no one who would take any interest in them. But
this is what occurred. I did mean to go to New York and I even
started on my walk to the Bridge at the hour mentioned. But I got
into a small crowd on the corner of Fulton Street, in which a poor
devil who had robbed a vendor's cart of a few oranges, was being
hustled about. There was no policeman within sight, and so I
busied myself there for a minute paying for the oranges and dragging
the poor wretch away into an alley, where I could have the pleasure
of seeing him eat them. When I came out of the alley the small
crowd had vanished, but a big one was collecting up the street very
near my home. I always think of my books when I see anything
suggesting fire, and naturally I returned, and equally naturally,
when I heard what had happened, followed the crowd into the court
and so up to the poor woman's doorway. But my curiosity satisfied,
I returned at once to the street and went to New York as I had
planned."

"Do you mind telling us where you went in New York?"

"Not at all. I went shopping. I wanted a certain very fine wire,
for an experiment I had on hand, and I found it in a little shop in
Fourth Avenue. If I remember rightly, the name over the door was
Grippus. Its oddity struck me."

There was nothing left to the Inspector but to dismiss him. He had
answered all questions willingly, and with a countenance inexpressive
of guile. He even indulged in a parting shot on his own account, as
full of frank acceptance of the situation as it was fearless in its
attack. As he halted in the doorway before turning his back upon
the room, he smiled for the third time as he quietly said:

"I have ceased visiting my friend's apartment in upper New York.
If you ever want me again, you will find me amongst my books. If
my invention halts and other interests stale, you have furnished
me this day with a problem which cannot fail to give continual
occupation to my energies. If I succeed in solving it first, I
shall be happy to share my knowledge with you. Till then, trust
the laws of nature. No man when once on the outside of a door can
button it on the inside, nor could any one without the gift of
complete invisibility, make a leap of over fifteen feet from the
sill of a fourth story window on to an adjacent fire escape, without
attracting the attention of some of the many children playing down
below."

He was half-way out the door, but his name quickly spoken by the
Inspector drew him back.

"Anything more?" he asked.

The Inspector smiled.

"You are a man of considerable analytic power, as I take it, Mr.
Brotherson. You must have decided long ago how this woman died."

"Is that a question, Inspector?"

"You may take it as such."

"Then I will allow myself to say that there is but one common-sense
view to take of the matter. Miss Challoner's death was due to
suicide; so was that of the washerwoman. But there I stop. As for
the means--the motive--such mysteries may be within your province
but they are totally outside mine! God help us all! The world is
full of misery. Again I wish you good-day."

The air seemed to have lost its vitality and the sun its sparkle
when he was gone.

"Now, what do you think, Gryce?"

The old man rose and came out of his corner.

"This: that I'm up against the hardest proposition of my lifetime.
Nothing in the man's appearance or manner evinces guilt, yet I
believe him guilty. I must. Not to, is to strain probability to
the point of breakage. But how to reach him is a problem and one
of no ordinary nature. Years ago, when I was but little older than
Sweetwater, I had just such a conviction concerning a certain man
against whom I had even less to work on than we have here. A murder
had been committed by an envenomed spring contained in a toy puzzle.
I worked upon the conscience of the suspect in that case, by
bringing constantly before his eyes a facsimile of that spring. It
met him in the folded napkin which he opened at his restaurant
dinner. He stumbled upon it in the street, and found it lying
amongst his papers at home. I gave him no relief and finally he
succumbed. He had been almost driven mad by remorse. But this man
has no conscience. If he is not innocent as the day, he's as hard
as unquarried marble. He might be confronted with reminders of his
crime at every turn without weakening or showing by loss of appetite
or interrupted sleep any effect upon his nerves. That's my opinion
of the gentleman. He is either that, or a man of uncommon force
and self-restraint."

"I'm inclined to believe him the latter."

"And so give the whole matter the go-by?"

"Possibly."

"It will be a terrible disappointment to Sweetwater."

"That's nothing."

"And to me."

"That's different. I'm disposed to consider you, Gryce--after all
these years."

"Thank you; I have done the state some service."

"What do you want? You say the mine is unworkable."

"Yes, in a day, or in a week, possibly in a month. But persistence
and a protean adaptability to meet his moods might accomplish
something. I don't say will, I only say might. If Sweetwater had
the job, with unlimited time in which to carry out any plan he may
have, or even for a change of plans to suit a changed idea, success
might be his, and both time, effort and outlay justified."

"The outlay? I am thinking of the outlay."

"Mr. Challoner will see to that. I have his word that no reasonable
amount will daunt him."

"But this Brotherson is suspicious. He has an inventor's secret to
hide, if none other. We can't saddle him with a guy of Sweetwater's
appearance and abnormal loquaciousness."

"Not readily, I own. But time will bring counsel. Are you willing
to help the boy, to help me and possibly yourself by this venture in
the dark? The Department shan't lose money by it; that's all I can
promise."

"But it's a big one. Gryce, you shall have your way. You'll be the
only loser if you fail; and you will fail; take my word for it."

"I wish I could speak as confidently to the contrary, but I can't.
I can give you my hand though, Inspector, and Sweetwater's thanks.
I can meet the boy now. An hour ago I didn't know how I was to
do it."

XV

THAT'S THE QUESTION

"How many times has he seen you?"

"Twice."

"So that he knows your face and figure?"

"I'm afraid so. He cannot help remembering the man who faced him
in his own room."

"That's unfortunate."

"Damned unfortunate; but one must expect some sort of a handicap
in a game like this. Before I'm done with him, he'll look me full
in the face and wonder if he's ever seen me before. I wasn't always
a detective. I was a carpenter once, as you know, and I'll take to
the tools again. As soon as I'm handy with them I'll hunt up
lodgings in Hicks Street. He may suspect me at first, but he won't
long; I'll be such a confounded good workman. I only wish I hadn't
such pronounced features. They've stood awfully in my way, Mr. Gryce.
I don't like to talk about my appearance, but I'm so confounded plain
that people remember me. Why couldn't I have had one of those putty
faces which don't mean anything? It would have been a deuced sight
more convenient."

"You've done very well as it is."

"But I want to do better. I want to deceive him to his face. He's
clever, this same Brotherson, and there's glory to be got in making
a fool of him. Do you think it could be done with a beard? I've
never worn a beard. While I'm settling back into my old trade, I
can let the hair grow."

"Do. It'll make you look as weak as water. It'll be blonde, of
course."

"And silky and straggling. Charming addition to my beauty. But
it'll take half an inch off my nose, and it'll cover my mouth,
which means a lot in my case. Then my complexion! It must be
changed naturally. I'll consult a doctor about that. No sort of
make-believe will go with this man. If my eyes look weak, they
must really be so. If I walk slowly and speak huskily, it must be
because I cannot help it. I can bear the slight inconvenience of
temporary ill-health in a cause like this; and if necessary the
cough will be real, and the headache positive.

"Sweetwater! We'd better give the task to another man--to someone
Brotherson has never seen and won't be suspicious of?"

"He'll be suspicious of everybody who tries to make friends with
him now; only a little more so with me; that's all. But I've got
to meet that, and I'll do it by being, temporarily, of course,
exactly the man I seem. My health will not be good for the next
few weeks, I'm sure of that. But I'll be a model workman, neat and
conscientious with just a suspicion of dash where dash is needed.
He knows the real thing when he sees it, and there's not a fellow
living more alive to shams. I won't be a sham. I'll be it. You'll
see."

"But the doubt. Can you do all this in doubt of the issue?"

"No; I must have confidence in the end, and I must believe in his
guilt. Nothing else will carry me through. I must believe in his
guilt."

"Yes, that's essential."

"And I do. I never was surer of anything than I am of that. But
I'll have the deuce of a time to get evidence enough for a grand
jury. That's plainly to be seen, and that's why I'm so dead set
on the business. It's such an even toss-up."

"I don't call it even. He's got the start of you every way. You
can't go to his tenement; the janitor there would recognise you
even if he didn't."

"Now I will give you a piece of good news. They're to have a new
janitor next week. I learned that yesterday. The present one is
too easy. He'll be out long before I'm ready to show myself there;
and so will the woman who took care of the poor washerwoman's little
child. I'd not have risked her curiosity. Luck isn't all against
us. How does Mr. Challoner feel about it?"

"Not very confident; but willing to give you any amount of rope.
Sweetwater, he let me have a batch of letters written by his daughter
which he found in a secret drawer. They are not to be read, or even
opened, unless a great necessity arises. They were written for
Brotherson's eye--or so the father says--but she never sent them;
too exuberant perhaps. If you ever want them--I cannot give them
to you to-night, and wouldn't if I could,--don't go to Mr. Challoner
--you must never be seen at his hotel--and don't come to me, but
to the little house in West Twenty-ninth Street, where they will be
kept for you, tied up in a package with your name on it. By the way,
what name are you going to work under?"

"My mother's--Zugg."

"Good! I'll remember. You can always write or even telephone to
Twenty-ninth Street. I'm in constant communication with them there,
and it's quite safe."

"Thanks. You're sure the Superintendent is with me?"

"Yes, but not the Inspector. He sees nothing but the victim of a
strange coincidence in Orlando Brotherson."

"Again the scales hang even. But they won't remain so. One side
is bound to rise. Which? That's the question, Mr. Gryce."

XVI

OPPOSED

There was a new tenant in the Hicks Street tenement. He arrived
late one afternoon and was shown two rooms, one in the rear building
and another in the front one. Both were on the fourth floor. He
demurred at the former, thought it gloomy but finally consented to
try it. The other, he said, was too expensive. The janitor--new
to the business--was not much taken with him and showed it, which
seemed to offend the newcomer, who was evidently an irritable fellow
owing to ill health.

However, they came to terms as I have said, and the man went away,
promising to send in his belongings the next day. He smiled as he
said this and the janitor who had rarely seen such a change take
place in a human face, looked uncomfortable for a moment and seemed
disposed to make some remark about the room they were leaving. But,
thinking better of it, locked the door and led the way downstairs.
As the prospective tenant followed, he may have noticed, probably
did, that the door they had just left was a new one--the only new
thing to be seen in the whole shabby place.

The next night that door was locked on the inside. The young man
had taken possession. As he put away the remnants of a meal he had
cooked for himself, he cast a look at his surroundings, and
imperceptibly sighed. Then he brightened again, and sitting down
on his solitary chair, he turned his eyes on the window which,
uncurtained and without shade, stared open-mouthed, as it were, at
the opposite wall rising high across the court.

In that wall, one window only seemed to interest him and that was
on a level with his own. The shade of this window was up, but
there was no light back of it and so nothing of the interior could
be seen. But his eye remained fixed upon it, while his hand,
stretched out towards the lamp burning near him, held itself in
readiness to lower the light at a minute's notice.

Did he see only the opposite wall and that unillumined window? Was
there no memory of the time when, in a previous contemplation of
those dismal panes, he beheld stretching between them and himself,
a long, low bench with a plain wooden tub upon it, from which a
dripping cloth beat out upon the boards beneath a dismal note,
monotonous as the ticking of a clock?

One might judge that such memories were indeed his, from the rapid
glance he cast behind him at the place where the bed had stood in
those days. It was placed differently now.

But if he saw, and if he heard these suggestions from the past, he
was not less alive to the exactions of the present, for, as his
glance flew back across the court, his finger suddenly moved and
the flame it controlled sputtered and went out. At the same
instant, the window opposite sprang into view as the lamp was lit
within, and for several minutes the whole interior remained visible
--the books, the work-table, the cluttered furniture, and, most
interesting of all, its owner and occupant. It was upon the latter
that the newcomer fixed his attention, and with an absorption equal
to that he saw expressed in the countenance opposite.

But his was the absorption of watchfulness; that of the other of
introspection. Mr. Brotherson--(we will no longer call him Dunn
even here where he is known by no other name)--had entered the room
clad in his heavy overcoat and, not having taken it off before
lighting his lamp, still stood with it on, gazing eagerly down at
the model occupying the place of honour on the large centre table.
He was not touching it,--not at this moment--but that his thoughts
were with it, that his whole mind was concentrated on it, was
evident to the watcher across the court; and, as this watcher took
in this fact and noticed the loving care with which the enthusiastic
inventor finally put out his finger to re-arrange a thread or twirl
a wheel, his disappointment found utterance in a sigh which echoed
sadly through the dull and cheerless room. Had he expected this
stern and self-contained man to show an open indifference to work
and the hopes of a lifetime? If so, this was the first of the many
surprises awaiting him.

He was gifted, however, with the patience of an automaton and
continued to watch his fellow tenant as long as the latter's shade
remained up. When it fell, he rose and took a few steps up and down,
but not with the celerity and precision which usually accompanied his
movements. Doubt disturbed his mind and impeded his activity. He
had caught a fair glimpse of Brotherson's face as he approached the
window, and though it continued to show abstraction, it equally
displayed serenity and a complete satisfaction with the present if
not with the future. Had he mistaken his man after all? Was his
instinct, for the first time in his active career, wholly at fault?

He had succeeded in getting a glimpse of his quarry in the privacy
of his own room, at home with his thoughts and unconscious of any
espionage, and how had he found him? Cheerful, and natural in
all his movements.

But the evening was young. Retrospect comes with later and more
lonely hours. There will be opportunities yet for studying this
impassive countenance under much more telling and productive
circumstances than these. He would await these opportunities with
cheerful anticipation. Meanwhile, he would keep up the routine
watch he had planned for this night. Something might yet occur.
At all events he would have exhausted the situation from this
standpoint.

And so it came to pass that at an hour when all the other
hard-working people in the building were asleep, or at least
striving to sleep, these two men still sat at their work, one in
the light, the other in the darkness, facing each other, consciously
to the one, unconsciously to the other, across the hollow well of
the now silent court. Eleven o'clock! Twelve! No change on
Brotherson's part or in Brotherson's room; but a decided one in
the place where Sweetwater sat. Objects which had been totally
indistinguishable even to his penetrating eye could now be seen in
ever brightening outline. The moon had reached the open space
above the court, and he was getting the full benefit of it. But it
was a benefit he would have been glad to dispense with. Darkness
was like a shield to him. He did not feel quite sure that he wanted
this shield removed. With no curtain to the window and no shade,
and all this brilliance pouring into the room, he feared the
disclosure of his presence there, or, if not that, some effect on
his own mind of those memories he was more anxious to see mirrored
in another's discomfiture than in his own.

Was it to escape any lack of concentration which these same memories
might bring, that he rose and stepped to the window? Or was it
under one of those involuntary impulses which move us in spite of
ourselves to do the very thing our judgment disapproves?

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