clever criminals never ARE caught?"

"Of course I do. Look about you--look back for the last dozen
years--none of the big murder problems are ever solved." The
lawyer ruminated behind his blue cloud. "Why, take the instance
in your own family: I'd forgotten I had an illustration at hand!
Take old Joseph Lenman's murder--do you suppose that will ever be
explained?"

As the words dropped from Ascham's lips his host looked slowly
about the library, and every object in it stared back at him with
a stale unescapable familiarity. How sick he was of looking at
that room! It was as dull as the face of a wife one has wearied
of. He cleared his throat slowly; then he turned his head to the
lawyer and said: "I could explain the Lenman murder myself."

Ascham's eye kindled: he shared Granice's interest in criminal
cases.

"By Jove! You've had a theory all this time? It's odd you never
mentioned it. Go ahead and tell me. There are certain features
in the Lenman case not unlike this Ashgrove affair, and your idea
may be a help."

Granice paused and his eye reverted instinctively to the table
drawer in which the revolver and the manuscript lay side by side.
What if he were to try another appeal to Rose Melrose? Then he
looked at the notes and bills on the table, and the horror of
taking up again the lifeless routine of life--of performing the
same automatic gestures another day--displaced his fleeting