"I'll tell you," Braceway replied with spirit. "It's a fair question, and I'll answer it. I'm going there on a hunch. I can't persuade myself that Perry's guilty, and I've a hunch that I'm now on the trail of the right man. And, as long as I'm in the business as a professional detective, I don't propose to disregard one scintilla of evidence, one smallest clue. I'll run down every tip and any hunch before I'll quit a case, saying virtually: 'Well, that man, or this man, seems guilty; go ahead and string him up.'
"No innocent man's going to his death as long as I feel there's a chance of the guilty fellow being around and laughing up his sleeve. That's the whole thing in a nutshell. That's why I'm after Morley! That's why I'm going to Washington."
Bristow, responding warmly to the other's voice and mood, leaned forward and grasped his hand.
"Good!" he said. "That's fine—and I'm with you."
"It's the only way to look at this work. Without the proper ideals, it's a rotten business. But, with the right viewpoint, it's great, at times far more valuable than the work of lawyers and judges."
"I'm glad you said that," Bristow declared; "very glad, because I'm thinking of going into it myself."
"You are?" Braceway appeared surprised; or his emotion might have been sympathy for a man driven to the choice of a new profession in life.
"Yes. I was talking about it to Greenleaf this afternoon. I realize—I'd be foolish if I didn't—that this case has given me a lot of publicity. It has put me where I can say I know something about crime and criminals, although, up until this murder, the knowledge has been mostly on paper."
"Yes; I know."
"But now, since I'm stuck down here for this long convalescence, it's the best thing I can do; in fact, it's the only thing. I've drifted through life fooling with real estate and writing now and then a little, a very little, poor fiction. Neither occupation would support me in Furmville; and I think I could make good as a sort of consulting detective and criminologist. There's money in it, isn't there?"