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I was still well on the right side of the ledger until I began, merely out of curiosity, to play at speculation. It's a very old story particularly in Wall Street. I thought it was easy; I was lucky at first; I would always be prudent and so on. Then came the day when I went out of my depth. In one week I was separated from my roll, as Bunner expressed it when I told him; and I owed money, too.
I know they say every man has his loco point, Mr Bunner added reflectively, 'but that doesn't mean genuine, sure-enough craziness; it just means some personal eccentricity in a man...like hating cats...or my own weakness of not being able to touch any kind of fish-food. 'Well, what was Manderson's? 'He was full of them the old man.
What licks me altogether is why he should have just laid himself open to them the way he did why he never tried to dodge, but walked right down into the garden yesterday morning to be shot at." Mr. Bunner ceased to speak, and for a little while both men sat with wrinkled brows, faint blue vapors rising from their cigars. Then Trent rose. "Your theory is quite fresh to me," he said.
The house of which Bunner Sisters had annexed the basement was a private dwelling with a brick front, green shutters on weak hinges, and a dress-maker's sign in the window above the shop. On each side of its modest three stories stood higher buildings, with fronts of brown stone, cracked and blistered, cast-iron balconies and cat-haunted grass-patches behind twisted railings.
Her eyes rested a moment on the blotched "Bunner Sisters" above the empty window of the shop; then they travelled on to the overflowing foliage of the Square, above which was the church tower with the dial that had marked the hours for the sisters before Ann Eliza had bought the nickel clock.
'Don't let them slip you any of that bunk, said Mr Bunner earnestly. 'It's only the ones who have got rich too quick, and can't make good, who go crazy. Think of all our really big men the men anywhere near Manderson's size: did you ever hear of any one of them losing his senses? They don't do it believe me.
The younger Bunner sister, who was a little taller than her elder, had a more pronounced nose, but a weaker slope of mouth and chin. She still permitted herself the frivolity of waving her pale hair, and its tight little ridges, stiff as the tresses of an Assyrian statue, were flattened under a dotted veil which ended at the tip of her cold-reddened nose.
At last he forced himself to put a direct question. Mr Bunner was not very fully informed. He knew that Mrs Manderson had left England immediately after the settlement of her husband's affairs, and had lived for some time in Italy.
They, who had not heard a sound to herald this entrance, simultaneously looked at his long, narrow feet. He wore rubber-soled tennis shoes. 'You must be Mr Bunner, said Trent. 'Calvin C. Bunner, at your service, amended the newcomer, with a touch of punctilio, as he removed an unlighted cigar from his mouth.
'It's perfectly rational, and it's only a question of whether it fits all the facts, I mustn't give away what I'm doing for my newspaper, Mr Bunner, but I will say this: I have already satisfied myself that this was a premeditated crime, and an extraordinarily cunning one at that. I'm deeply obliged to you. We must talk it over again. He looked at his watch.
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