The conjecture that Lemuel Shackford had himself torn up the will—­if it was a will, for this still remained in dispute—­had never been satisfactory to Mr. Taggett.  He had accepted it because he was unable to imagine an ordinary burglar pausing in the midst of his work to destroy a paper in which he could have no concern.  But Richard Shackford would have the liveliest possible interest in the destruction of a document that placed a vast estate beyond his reach.  Here was a motive on a level with the crime.  That money had been taken, and that the fragments of the will had been carelessly thrown into a waste-paper basket, just as if the old man himself had thrown them there, was a stroke of art which Mr. Taggett admired more and more as he reflected upon it.

He did not, however, allow himself to lay too much stress on these points; for the paper might turn out to be merely an expired lease, and the girl might have been quizzing Durgin.  Mr. Taggett would have given one of his eye-teeth just then for ten minutes with Mary Hennessey.  But an interview with her at this stage was neither prudent nor easily compassed.

“If I have not struck a trail,” writes Mr. Taggett, “I have come upon what strongly resembles one; the least I can do is to follow it.  My first move must be to inspect that private workshop in the rear of Mr. Slocum’s house.  How shall I accomplish it?  I cannot apply to him for permission, for that would provoke questions which I am not ready to answer.  Moreover, I have yet to assure myself that Mr. Slocum is not implicated.  There seems to have been also a hostile feeling existing between him and the deceased.  Why didn’t some one tell me these things at the start!  If young Shackford is the person, there is a tangled story to be unraveled. Mem: Young Shackford is Miss Slocum’s lover.”

Mr. Slocum read this passage twice without drawing breath, and then laid down the book an instant to wipe the sudden perspiration from his forehead.

In the note which followed, Mr. Taggett described the difficulty he met with in procuring a key to fit the wall-door at the rear of the marble yard, and gave an account of his failure to effect an entrance into the studio.  He had hoped to find a window unfastened; but the window, as well as the door opening upon the veranda, was locked, and in the midst of his operations, which were conducted at noon-time, the approach of a servant had obliged him to retreat.

Forced to lay aside, at least temporarily, his designs on the workshop, he turned his attention to Richard’s lodgings in Lime Street.  Here Mr. Taggett was more successful.  On the pretext that he had been sent for certain drawings which were to be found on the table or in a writing-desk, he was permitted by Mrs. Spooner to ascend to the bedroom, where she obligingly insisted on helping him search for the apocryphal plans, and seriously interfered with his purpose, which was to find the key of the studio.  While