,' he said, after a few moments. 'There are some
things I can tell you that may be useful to you. I know your record. You
are a smart man, and I like dealing with smart men. I don't know if I
have that detective sized up right, but he strikes me as a mutt. I would
answer any questions he had the gumption to ask me--I have done so,
in fact--but I don't feel encouraged to give him any notions of mine
without his asking. See?'

Trent nodded. 'That is a feeling many people have in the presence of our
police,' he said. 'It's the official manner, I suppose. But let me tell
you, Murch is anything but what you think. He is one of the shrewdest
officers in Europe. He is not very quick with his mind, but he is very
sure. And his experience is immense. My forte is imagination, but I
assure you in police work experience outweighs it by a great deal.'

'Outweigh nothing!' replied Mr Bunner crisply. 'This is no ordinary
case, Mr Trent. I will tell you one reason why. I believe the old man
knew there was something coming to him. Another thing: I believe it was
something he thought he couldn't dodge.'

Trent pulled a crate opposite to Mr Bunner's place on the footboard
and seated himself. 'This sounds like business,' he said. 'Tell me your
ideas.'

'I say what I do because of the change in the old man's manner this last
few weeks. I dare say you have heard, Mr Trent, that he was a man who
always kept himself well in hand. That was so. I have always considered
him the coolest and hardest head in business. That man's calm was just
deadly--I never saw anything to beat it. And I knew Manderson as nobody
else did. I was with him in the work he really lived for. I guess I knew
him a heap better than his wife did, poor woman. I knew him better than
Marlowe could--he never saw Manderson in his office when there was a big
thing on. I knew him better than any of his friends.'

'Had he any friends?' interjected Trent.

Mr Bunner glanced at him sharply. 'Somebody has been putting you next, I
see that,' he remarked. 'No: properly speaking, I should say not. He
had many acquaintances among the big men, people he saw, most every day;
they would even go yachting or hunting together. But I don't believe
there ever was a man that Manderson opened a corner of his heart to. But
what I was going to say was this. Some months ago the old man began to
get like I never knew him before--gloomy and sullen, just as if he was
everlastingly brooding over some