The Man Who Was Two by Fred M. White

Mallison was beginning to see more or less clearly into the heart of a mystery that had rendered him almost insane whenever he had dwelt upon it in the dreary prison house out there on the desolate moor. Many a weary hour had he spent going over the case as presented by the prosecution at his trial, but usually he had abandoned that line of thought, because madness lay that way. But here was something that he never would have dreamt of. He looked at Gilette with more than admiration in his eyes. For, obviously, here was a man who was made for far better things than dabbling in short stories, and frittering away his time making more or less dramatic pictures for the proletariat. He mentioned something of this in a half-confused sort of way, but Gilette merely smiled.

"Oh, I don't know," he said. "One must do something. I get tired of the usual round of sports and amusements, such as we fortunate chaps indulge in, and, as I have already told you, I am not the great dramatist I took myself to be. I might have gone in for politics, of course, but it's rather a dirty game, and, as far as I can see, betraying one's friends is the only safe way to secure personal advancement. Perhaps I should have been better employed as a private detective."