oolish prating about
righteousness and virtue were never worth a dollar.

That was it! If you were mighty and clever, you stayed on top. If you
were sentimental and looking after other people's interests, you went
down. You had no time to bother about the safety and happiness of others.
Look out for yourself. Never relent in the fierce battle against the odds
of life. That was the only way to conquer and avoid catastrophe.

He was sure of it when he thought about himself. He had a brilliant
brain. It was not particularly egotistic for him to think that. It was
merely a fact. But he had not used it relentlessly and incessantly.
He had relaxed his hold too often when seeking pleasure. Although he had
done things which had been applauded by his friends, he had nothing much
to show in the way of lasting results.

That was why he was here now, with scarcely enough resources to pay the
rent of his bungalow and the expenses of living. A little dabbling in
real estate, some third-rate work for the magazines, a passing notoriety
as a guesser of crime riddles--it was not a record that promised a bright
future.

He sighed. Well, that was the way of life. He might yet accomplish big
things although he was under a terrific handicap--and he might not. He
would try, and see.

His future was much like the probable outcome of this murder. How
would the circumstances shape themselves? What would be the result of
circumstantial evidence?

It was all a gamble. Some murderers were lucky and got away. And some
innocent men were not lucky. These were like the blundering, illiterate
negro Perry. There was an even chance that the guilty man would be
caught--and there was an even chance that an innocent man would hang.
Life was like that!

He caressed with his forefinger his protruding lip. He wouldn't say the
negro was guilty. In spite of the evidence of the buttons, he would
advance no such theory yet. And as to Morley--nobody could think that
a man with such a weak face would have the nerve to do murder. He knew
this. There must be somebody else. It might be that the sister, Maria
Fulton, in an excess of rage--But why reason about that before he had
talked to her?

It was up to him to fasten the guilt on the guilty man--or woman. That
was what was expected of him. And it was a task which----

He turned toward the table and began methodically to paste into their
proper places the clippings he had cut from the newspapers concerning