journals. He became intrigued; his imagination began to work, in a manner
strange to him, upon facts; an excitement took hold of him such as he had only
known before in his bursts of art-inspiration or of personal adventure. At the
end of the day he wrote and dispatched a long letter to the editor of the
Record, which he chose only because it had contained the fullest and most
intelligent version of the facts.

In this letter he did very much what Poe had done in the case of the murder of
Mary Rogers. With nothing but the newspapers to guide him, he drew attention
to the significance of certain apparently negligible facts, and ranged the
evidence in such a manner as to throw grave suspicion upon a man who had
presented himself as a witness. Sir James Molloy had printed this letter in
leaded type. The same evening he was able to announce in the Sun the arrest
and full confession of the incriminated man.

Sir James, who knew all the worlds of London, had lost no time in making
Trent's acquaintance. The two men got on well, for Trent possessed some secret
of native tact which had the effect of almost abolishing differences of age
between himself and others. The great rotary presses in the basement of the
Record building had filled him with a new enthusiasm. He had painted there,
and Sir James had bought at sight, what he called a machinery-scape in the
manner of Heinrich Kley.

Then a few months later came the affair known as the Ilkley mystery. Sir James
had invited Trent to an emollient dinner, and thereafter offered him what
seemed to the young man a fantastically large sum for his temporary services
as special representative of the Record at Ilkley.

'You could do it,' the editor had urged. 'You can write good stuff, and you
know how to talk to people, and I can teach you all the technicalities of a