head, keen, bright eyes, a decided blond, and wore a Vandyke beard, close trimmed. He looked at Mr. Barnes in such a manner that the detective knew that whatever he might learn from this man would be nothing that he would prefer to conceal, unless accidentally surprised from him. It was necessary therefore to approach the subject with considerable circumspection.
"I have called," said Mr. Barnes, "in relation to the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of your brother."
"Are you connected with the police force?" asked Mr. Quadrant.
"No. I am a private detective."
"Then you will pardon my saying that you are an intruder – an unwelcome intruder."
"I think not," said Mr. Barnes, showing no irritation at his reception. "I have the permission of Mrs. Quadrant to investigate this affair."
"Oh! You have seen her, have you?"
"I have just had an interview with her."
"Then your intrusion is more than unwelcome; it is an impertinence."
"Why, pray?"
"You should have seen myself or my brother, before disturbing a woman in the midst of her grief."
"I asked for you or your brother, but you were both away. It was only then that I asked to see Mrs. Quadrant."
"You should not have done so. It was impertinent, I repeat. Why could you not have waited to see one of us?"
"Justice cannot wait. Delay is often dangerous."
"What have you to do with justice? This affair is none of your business."
"The State assumes that a crime is an outrage against all its citizens, and any man has the right to seek out and secure the punishment of the criminal."
"How do you know that any crime has been committed?"
"There can be no doubt about it. The removal of your brother's body from his coffin was a criminal act in itself, even if we do not take into account the object of the person who did this."
"And what, pray, was the object, since you are so wise?"
"Perhaps the substitution of the body of a victim of murder, in order that the person killed might be incinerated."
"That proposition is worthy of a detective. You first invent a crime, and then seek to gain employment in ferreting out what never occurred."
"That hardly holds with me, as I have offered my service without remuneration."
"Oh, I see. An enthusiast in your calling! A crank, in other words. Well, let me prick your little bubble. Suppose I can supply you with another motive, one not at all connected with murder?"
"I should be glad to hear you propound one."
"Suppose that I tell you that though my brother requested that his body should be cremated, both his widow and myself were opposed? Suppose that I further state that my brother Amos, being older than I, assumed the management of affairs, and insisted that the cremation should occur? And then suppose that I admit that to thwart that, I removed the body myself?"
"You ask me to suppose all this," said Mr. Barnes quietly. "In reply, I ask you, do you make such a statement?"
"Why, no. I do not intend to make any statement, because I do not consider that you have any right to mix yourself up in this affair. It is my wish that the matter should be allowed to rest. Nothing could be more repugnant to my feelings, or to my brother's, were he alive, poor fellow, than all this newspaper notoriety. I wish to see the body buried, and the mystery with it. I have no desire for any solution."
"But, despite your wishes, the affair will be, must be, investigated. Now, to discuss your imaginary proposition, I will say that it is so improbable that no one would believe it."
"Why not, pray?"
"First, because it was an unnatural procedure upon such an inadequate motive. A man might kill his brother, but he would hardly desecrate his brother's coffin merely to prevent a certain form of disposing of the dead."
"That is mere presumption. You cannot dogmatically state what may actuate a man."
"But in this case the means was inadequate to the end."
"How so?"
"If the combined wishes of yourself and the widow could not sway your brother Amos, who had taken charge of the funeral, how could you hope when the body should be removed from the river, that he would be more easily brought around to your wishes?"
"The effort to cremate the body having failed once, he would not resist my wishes in the second burial."
"That is doubtful. I should think he would be so incensed by your act, that he would be more than ever determined that you should have no say in the matter. But supposing that you believed otherwise, and that you wished to carry out this extraordinary scheme, you had no opportunity to do so."
"Why not?"
"I suppose, of course, that your brother sat up with the corpse through the night before the funeral."
"Exactly. You suppose a good deal more than you know. My brother did not sit up with the corpse. As the coffin had been closed, there was no need to follow that obsolete custom. My brother retired before ten o'clock. I myself remained up some hours longer."
Thus in the mental sparring Mr. Barnes had succeeded in learning one fact from this reluctant witness.
"But even so," persisted the detective, "you would have found difficulty in removing the body from this house to the river."
"Yet it was done, was it not?"
This was unanswerable. Mr. Barnes did not for a moment place any faith in what this brother had said. He argued that had he done anything like what he suggested, he would never have hinted at it as a possibility. Why he did so was a puzzle. Perhaps he merely wished to make the affair seem more intricate, in the hope of persuading him to drop the investigation, being, as he had stated, honestly anxious to have the matter removed from the public gaze, and caring nothing about any explanation of how his brother's body had been taken from the coffin. On the other hand, there was a possibility which could not be entirely overlooked. He might really have been guilty of acting as he had suggested, and perhaps now told of it as a cunning way of causing the detective to discredit such a solution of the mystery. Mr. Barnes thought it well to pursue the subject a little further.
"Suppose," said he, "that it could be shown that the ashes now in the urn at the cemetery are the ashes of a human being?"
"You will be smart if you can prove that," said Mr. Quadrant. "Ashes are ashes, I take it, and you will get little proof there. But since you discussed my proposition, I will argue with you about yours. You say, suppose the ashes are those of a human being. Very well, then, that would prove that my brother was cremated after all, and that I have been guying you, playing with you as a fisherman who fools a fish with feathers instead of real bait."
"But what of the identification of the body at the Morgue?"
"Was there ever a body at the Morgue that was not identified a dozen times? People are apt to be mistaken about their friends after death."
"But this identification was quite complete, being backed up by scientific reasons advanced by experts."
"Yes, but did you ever see a trial where expert witnesses were called, that equally expert witnesses did not testify to the exact contrary? Let me ask you a question. Have you seen this body at the Morgue?"
"Not yet."
"Go and see it. Examine the sole of the left foot. If you do not find a scar three or four inches long the body is not that of my brother. This scar was the result of a bad gash made by stepping on a shell when in bathing. He was a boy at the time, and I was with him."
"But, Mr. Quadrant," said Mr. Barnes, astonished by the new turn of the conversation, "I understood that you yourself admitted that the identification was correct."
"The body was identified by Dr. Mortimer first. My sister and my brother agreed with the doctor, and I agreed with them all, for reasons of my own."
"Would