For a moment the lines round her eyes hardened, and the sparkle became a flash before it melted again as a rippling laugh came from her lips.
"How terribly stern you look!" she cried in a mocking voice. "Do you ever think of anything but your work, Mr. Durham?"
"Not when I have anything at all difficult on hand," he replied.
"Then this does puzzle you?"
"It has its difficulties; but, for all that, it is a problem I shall solve."
Again the rippling laugh rang through the room.
"Why, of course! Was there ever a case the police had in hand where they did not have a clue at the very beginning?"
"Several," he answered. "A clever, resourceful criminal, Mrs. Burke, always has the advantage. Where they fail ultimately is in becoming too sure of themselves and too forgetful of the network of snares laid to entrap them and always waiting to trip them."
"I suppose that is so," she said slowly. "I suppose that is so. Poor things—I can't help pitying them, Mr. Durham. One never knows what lies behind their wickedness—what it was which first sent them rolling down the slope that ends—often—on the gallows."
She shuddered as she spoke, averting her face from him.