"Oh, I don't know so much about that," answered Felix, shrewdly; "some
fellows are like trifle at a party, froth on top, but something better
underneath."

"What a greedy simile," said Calton, sipping his wine; "but I'm afraid
the police will have a more difficult task in discovering the man who
committed the crime. In my opinion he's a deuced clever fellow."

"Then you don't think he will be discovered?" asked Brian, rousing
himself out of his brown study.

"Well, I don't go as far as that," rejoined Calton; "but he has
certainly left no trace behind him, and even the Red Indian, in whom
instinct for tracking is so highly developed, needs some sort of a
trail to enable him to find out his enemies. Depend upon it," went on
Calton, warming to his subject, "the man who murdered Whyte is no
ordinary criminal; the place he chose for the committal of the crime
was such a safe one."

"Do you think so?" said Rolleston. "Why, I should think that a hansom
cab in a public street would be very unsafe."

"It is that very fact that makes it safer," replied Mr. Calton,
epigrammatically. "You read De Quincey's account of the Marr murders in
London, and you will see that the more public the place the less risk
there is of detection. There was nothing about the gentleman in the
light coat who murdered Whyte to excite Royston's suspicions. He
entered the cab with Whyte; no noise or anything likely to attract
attention was heard, and then he alighted. Naturally enough, Royston