ong run, and he knows it."

Such remarks occasionally reached young Mainwaring, making him
exceedingly indignant.

"You may say, once and for all," he said to a reporter who was
interviewing him in his apartments at the Murray Hill, "that in
withdrawing from this contest I am not currying favor with Harold
Scott Mainwaring. He and I are the best of friends, but that fact
would not hinder me from giving him a fair and square fight if
there were the slightest doubt as to the validity of his claim.
But there isn't; he has proved his right, legally and morally, to
the property, and that's enough for me."

"But Mr. Ralph Mainwaring must have some tenable ground for
contesting his claim," said the reporter, tentatively, hoping to
get some of the inside facts of the case.

Young Mainwaring froze instantly. "I have nothing whatever to say,
sir, regarding the governor's action in this matter; any information
you desire on that point you will have to obtain from him."

The next development in the Mainwaring case was a report to the
effect that the whereabouts of Harold W. Mainwaring could not be
ascertained, and it was generally supposed among his London
associates that he had followed his brother to America by the next
steamer. As this report was supplemented by the further facts that
he was a man of no principle, heavily involved in debt, and deeply
incensed at Ralph Mainwaring's success in securing for his son the
American estate in which he himself had expected to share, public
speculation was immediately aroused in a new direction, and "that
Mainwaring affair" became the absorbing topic, not alone at the
clubs and other places of masculine rendezvous, but at all social
gatherings as well.

Regarding the principal actors in this drama, however, around whom
public interest really centred, little could be definitely
ascertained. To many, who, on the following morning, read the
details of the suicide at the Wellington, it was a matter of no
small wonder that the name of Harold Scott Mainwaring was not once
mentioned in connection with that of the woman shown by the
preceding day's testimony to have been so closely related to him.
Perhaps no one was more surprised at this omission than Merrick
himself but if so, his only comment was made mentally.

"He's got the cinch on them all around, and he'll win, hands down!"

The inquest, held at an early hour, was merely a matter of form,
the evidence of intentional suicide