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 purpose.

This was a large, light apartment at the corner of the house, with generous
window-space in two walls. A broad table stood in the middle. As one entered
by the window the roll-top desk stood just to the left of it against the wall.
The inner door was in the wall to the left, at the farther end of the room;
and was faced by a broad window divided into openings of the casement type. A
beautifully carved old corner-cupboard rose high against the wall beyond the