and
he, through some obscure working of sympathy, had appreciated one
another from the beginning, and had formed one of those curious
friendships with which it was the younger man's delight to adorn his
experience. The inspector would talk more freely to him than to any one,
under the rose, and they would discuss details and possibilities of
every case, to their mutual enlightenment. There were necessarily rules
and limits. It was understood between them that Trent made no
journalistic use of any point that could only have come to him from an
official source. Each of them, moreover, for the honor and prestige of
the institution he represented, openly reserved the right to withhold
from the other any discovery or inspiration that might come to him which
he considered vital to the solution of the difficulty. Trent had
insisted on carefully formulating these principles of what he called
detective sportsmanship. Mr. Murch, who loved a contest, and who only
stood to gain by his association with the keen intelligence of the
other, entered very heartily into "the game." In these strivings for the
credit of the press and of the police, victory sometimes attended the
experience and method of the officer, sometimes the quicker brain and
livelier imagination of Trent, his gift of instinctively recognizing the
significant through all disguises.

The inspector, then, replied to Trent's last words with cordial
agreement. Leaning on either side of the French window, with the deep
peace and hazy splendor of the summer landscape before them, they
reviewed the case.

* * * * *

Trent had taken out a thin notebook, and as they talked he began to
make, with light, sure touches, a rough sketch plan of the room. It was
a thing he did habitually on such occasions, and often quite idly, but
now and then the habit had served him to good purpose.

This was a large, light apartment at the corner of the house, with
generous window-space in two walls. A broad table stood in the middle.
As one entered by the window the roll-top desk stood just to the left of
it against the wall. The inner door was in the wall to the left, at the
farther end of the room; and was faced by a broad window divided into
openings of the casement type. A beautifully carved old corner-cupboard
rose high against the wall beyond the door, and another cupboard filled
a recess beside the fireplace. Some colored prints of Harunobu, with
which