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"I don't know myself," he said truthfully. "Britz seems to think something's going to happen." It was ten o'clock precisely when Britz, Manning, Greig and the coroner passed from the chief's office into the room in which the suspects in the Whitmore mystery were gathered. They found Luckstone in command of the situation. "What does this mean?" he demanded, advancing toward Britz's desk.
It required no confirmation to convince Collins of something which he was only too eager to believe. And the knowledge instantly repaired his shattered nerves. Before the intrusion of the lawyer, Collins, made dizzy by the multiplicity of incriminating circumstances so adroitly unfolded by the detective, overcome by the rapidity of Britz's blows, was an abject creature ready to surrender his soul.
Coroner Hart was the first to recover from the surprise occasioned by Britz's revelation. He became aware of a growing skepticism that refused to accept so obvious an explanation of the puzzling circumstances surrounding the merchant's death.
Five minutes later and the door opened again, this time to admit Greig and a woman a woman so perceptibly under the influence of overpowering emotions as to cause her to stagger rather than walk into the room. As she stood with hands resting on Britz's desk, she suddenly felt herself seized with a desire to weep.
Surely the same solution would have suggested itself to him ere this were it possible for twenty hours to have elapsed between the time of the shooting and the discovery that Whitmore was dead! "If Whitmore was shot the night before, then he must have deliberately chosen his office in which to die!" the coroner said in disparagement of Britz's contention. "Why, it's impossible!
In the corridor Greig laid a detaining hand on Britz's elbow. "Why lieutenant " he gasped, "that was a photograph of Herbert Whitmore." "Precisely," said Britz. "And we're going to hop on board the next train for Atlanta." Three days later Britz and Greig returned from Atlanta. It had been a tiresome journey, fifty-five hours of the seventy-two having been spent in a Pullman coach.
Greig nodded understandingly, escorted her into the corridor and repeated Britz's directions to the waiting officer. Returning to the room, he found Britz leaning back in his chair, absorbed in thought, the lines of his forehead gathered between the eyebrows. "Well, it looks as if we're going to get the murderer without much effort on our part," said Greig jubilantly.
Collins and as the legal adviser of the other witnesses I wish to inform you that this proposed examination is utterly useless. I have instructed my clients not to answer any questions." Britz's eyes swept the faces of the witnesses in a look of sharp scrutiny. He found Mrs. Collins outwardly composed.
Far from uniting in a conspiracy to shield him, they would have allied themselves with us to avenge the death of the merchant." Manning and Greig were listening with faculties intensely alert, carried along by the irresistible course of Britz's logic. They were compelled to acknowledge to themselves that Collins had been effectually eliminated as the murderer.
In their eyes the case had taken on a hopeless, desperate aspect. By faultless reasoning Britz had established the presumptive innocence of the very ones among whom he had confidently expected to find the guilty one. The chief grew visibly disturbed. So this was the end of Britz's maneuvering! Failure appeared to be written in large capitals across the investigation.
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