Nick Nelson had had previous experiences of Barham’s queerness, and invariably it had turned out that he was shielding or assisting somebody else. Anyway, it must be looked into by some one capable of looking into it. Drew was getting too queer.
And so, Nick Nelson went to the office of Lorimer Lane and enlisted the sympathies and then engaged the services of that clever and well known detective.
“Use your own judgment,” Nelson told him, “about letting Mr. Barham know you are in the game. If you think best, be frank with him—but if it seems more advisable, then just let him think you’re on the police side of the case.”
“Are there two sides?” Lane asked. “I’ve only the newspaper accounts to guide me, you know.”
“Not two opposing sides,” Nelson told him, “but of course the police are trying to solve the mystery of Mrs. Barham’s death and of Locke’s disappearance, while Mr. Barham—lately, at any rate—is trying to hush up the whole affair. Now, the police are interested in his scarab business—that I’ve just told you about, and they think Mr. Barham is a thief. I know better—I know that he changed these things for some good and sufficient reason”
“Can you suggest or imagine any good and sufficient reason?”
Lorimer Lane was not scoffing at Nelson’s assumption, on the contrary, he was seriously interested.
Middle-aged, reserved and rather taciturn, he was glad to take hold of this strange case, and this new turn of Barham’s regarding the scarabs was both astonishing and intriguing.
“No, I can’t—” Nelson confessed, “that’s why I have come to you. I know Andrew Barham as well as I know
