A look of mild amusement passed over Murdock's countenance.
"Perhaps you are right, Mr. Sprague. At any rate, I think I may affirm, without overweening conceit, that if I had followed the course you suggest, I could have prepared for your friend Mr. Sturgis some pretty little problems on which to sharpen his wits. I feel that I could have been an artist as well as a scientist in that line."
"You might console yourself by writing an interesting and valuable book, under some such title as 'Hints to the Young Criminal,' or 'Crime as a Fine Art.' At all events, your criminals of genius have a stanch advocate in you. But what on earth have the detectives done to you to call forth this wholesale vituperation?"
"Nothing. But, as a disinterested observer, I like to see fair play. If I am mistaken in my estimate of the modern detective, I am open to conviction. I have five thousand dollars to wager against one hundred that I can pick up any daily paper and from its columns select an unsolved riddle, to which no detective on the face of the earth can give the answer. Have I any taker, gentlemen?"
As he spoke, his eyes met Sturgis's and suddenly seemed to flash with an earnest defiance, which instantly melted into the calm, cynical smile of the man of the world.
"Done," said Sturgis, quietly.
"Very well, Mr. Sturgis," observed Doctor Murdock indifferently. "I shall confine myself to the columns of your own newspaper for the selection of the problem upon which you are to work.
"And," he added, with a supercilious smile, "you are at liberty to fix the limit of time in which the wager must be decided."
"Hear! hear!" exclaimed a young broker. "This is becoming interesting, and promises some sport for those of us who are giddy enough to enjoy staking something on this novel contest. I, for one, am willing to lay reasonable odds on the side of law and order, as represented by the enlightened press, in the person of our clever friend Sturgis. Come, Chadwick, will two to one against the scientific criminal tempt you to champion the cause of that apparently unappreciated individual?"
"Very well, Fred," answered the man addressed; "I'll take you for a hundred."