“That is well, we are the oldest business house in Boston, and none can think it presumptuous that we should be anxious to erase this stain from the escutcheon of our Commonwealth. I wish every inducement offered that may lead to the apprehension of the criminal.” Mr. Dunlap stopped short as if suddenly some new idea had occurred to his mind, and then exclaimed:
“David, you possess a wonderful faculty for fathoming deep and complex mysteries. Why don’t you seek to discover the perpetrator of this horrible crime?”
David Chapman was not in the habit of blushing, but certainly his cheeks took on an unusually bright crimson hue, as Mr. Dunlap asked the question, and he answered in a somewhat abashed manner, as though detected in some act of youthful folly.
“I confess, sir, that I am making a little investigation in my own way. There are a few trifling circumstances and fragments of evidence left by the criminal that were considered unworthy of attention by the police that I am tracing up, like an amateur Sherlock Holmes.”
“Good for you, David! May you succeed in unearthing the brutal villain! You have carte-blanche to draw on the house for any expense that your search may entail. Go ahead! I will stand by you!” cried John Dunlap enthusiastically.
XVIII.
“The abysmal depth of degradation has now been reached; I no longer, even in my moments of affected refinement, attempt to conceal the fact from myself, the gauzy veil of acquisition no longer deceives even me, it long since failed to deceive others.”
What evil genii of metamorphosis had transformed the debonair Walter Burton into the wretched, slovenly, brutalized being who, grunting, gave utterance to such sentiments, while stretched, in unkempt abandonment, on a disordered couch in the center of the unswept and neglected music-room in the ‘Eyrie’ early on this March morning?