"I am proud to see you, sir, under my humble roof," said Byrne, "and I should have been proud to have entertained you during my days of prosperity. But that was not to be," he added, with a melancholy shake of the head.
"And now to business," said Gerald. "Mr. Murray is firmly convinced that Max Jacoby was the murderer of Paul Stilling."
"Aye, aye!" interjected Byrne.
"As a matter of course, the great desire of his life is to prove his innocence of the terrible crime of which in the eye of the law he is still adjudged to be guilty. He can only do this by bringing home the guilt to the real murderer. Assuming Mr. Murray's view of the case to be the correct one, the question is, by what means is Jacoby's guilt to be brought home to him?"
"And that is the problem you have come to me to help you to solve?" said Byrne.
Murray answered by a grave inclination of the head.
"I don't know that I ever had such a poser put to me before," said Byrne.
"It is the very difficulty of the problem that has induced me to seek your services," said Gerald.
"I must put on my considering-cap," said Byrne. "I must sand-paper my brains."
He was silent for a little while. Then he said, "I see no light at present--not the faintest gleam. You must let me have time to think about it--to smoke over it. My old pipe has made many a difficulty clear for me; perhaps it may help me in this one."