Brendon did not hide his emotion, but kept silence while Mr. Ganns helped himself to a pinch of snuff.
"Now the little I've done in the world," he continued, "is thanks not so much to the deductive mind we hear such a lot about, but to the synthetic mind. The linking up of facts has been my strong suit. That's the backbone of success; and where facts can't be linked up, then failure is usually the result. I never waste one moment on a theory until I've got a tough skeleton of facts back of it. It was up to you to hunt facts, Mark; and you didn't hunt facts."
"I had an encyclopedia of facts."
"Granted. But your encyclopedia began at the letter 'B,' instead of the letter 'A.' We'll turn to that in a minute."
"My facts, such as they were, cannot be denied," argued Brendon, a little aggrieved. "They are cast-iron. My eyes and observation are trained to be exact and jealous of facts. No amount of synthesis can prevent two and one from being three, Ganns."
"On the contrary, two and one may be twenty-one, or twelve, or a half. Why jump to any conclusion? You had facts; but you did not have all the available facts—or anything like all. You tried to put on the roof before the walls were up; and, what's more, a great many of your 'cast-iron facts' were no facts at all."
"What were they then?"
"Elaborate and deliberate fictions, Mark."
At this challenge Brendon felt a hot wave of colour mount his cheek; but the other was far too generous and genial a spirit ever to seek any triumph over a younger man. Neither did Brendon feel angry with Mr. Ganns even though his remarks were provocative enough. He was angry with himself. Peter, however, knew his power. He read the detective's mind like a book and well understood that, both by his position and rank, Mark must be far too good a man to chafe at the criticism of a better than himself. He explained.
"Where I've got the pull on you, for the minute, is merely because I've been in the world a few years longer. A time's coming when you'll talk to your juniors as I can talk to you; and they'll listen, with all proper respect and attention, as you are listening. When you are my age, you'll command that perfect confidence which I command. Folks can't trust youth all the way; but you'll win to it; and believe me, in our business, there's no greater asset than the power to command absolute trust. You can't pretend to that power if you haven't got it. Human nature damn soon sees through you, if you're pretending what you don't command. But I'm playing straight across the board, Mark, as my custom is, and I know you are too sane and ambitious a lad to let false pride or self-assurance resent my calling you an ass over this thing."