9
TRASK merely sat there silently listening, while I continued to argue vehemently that Beatrice was above suspicion. Not by a look or movement did he afford me reason to believe that my long and passionate exhortation prevailed upon him in the least. But now he rose quietly, yet with an alertness that told me he had made up his mind.
"All you say," he announced, "does credit to your heart but not to your head. You are reasoning from feelings and I from facts. And now it is my unpleasant duty to put you up against certain facts that are not lightly to be shoved aside if this mystery is to be solved. In the first place, you must put out of your mind for once and all any notion that this is a case of suicide."
"Why then the Maxim silencer?" I persisted.
"A mere whim on the part of an old
