papers arranged there in
order, and then turned to the open roll-top desk. He looked into the
drawers swiftly. 'I see this has been cleared out. Well now, inspector,
I suppose we play the game as before.'

Trent had found himself on a number of occasions in the past thrown into
the company of Inspector Murch, who stood high in the councils of the
Criminal Investigation Department. He was a quiet, tactful, and
very shrewd officer, a man of great courage, with a vivid history in
connection with the more dangerous class of criminals. His humanity was
as broad as his frame, which was large even for a policeman. Trent
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 honour 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, secure 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 purp