[Pg 26]

"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 [Pg 27] little bubble. Suppose I can supply you with another motive, one not at all connected with murder?"

[Pg 27]

"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 

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