Chapter 13

Fortune had turned her back on Britz on two critical occasions. First, Julia Strong had eliminated herself as a factor in the investigation of the Whitmore murder. Next, Lester Ward had been permitted to disappear at the very moment when he might have been induced to shed light on the crime. Since all crimes must be proved through witnesses, the loss of two of the most important ones was a staggering blow to Britz. It did not diminish his confidence in himself nor in his belief that he would eventually find the murderer. But to prove his case in court--his future efforts would have to be attended by more luck than had been vouchsafed him hitherto, if a successful prosecution were to be achieved.

As though the adverse fates that had pursued him were content with the havoc they had wrought, Britz was greeted by a rare piece of good fortune as he entered Police Headquarters. It came in the person of Muldoon, whom Britz encountered in the corridor.

"Got a prisoner for you!" beamed Muldoon. "The gent you told me to watch for."

"Where is he?" asked the detective.

"Downstairs."

"Where'd you get him?"

"Just where you said I would. You said he'd come around to the Tombs lookin' for the boss, and sure enough he came about half an hour after you left. I remembered having seen him hanging around the place yesterday and the day before, but I wasn't sure of him so I didn't molest him. This morning he comes to the door and asks to see Mr. Beard. Then I knew at once I had the right man. I collared him and had the nippers on him before he knew what struck him. Also, I relieved him of the bundle of papers he had and Greig is lookin' through 'em now."

"Did he say anything when you arrested him?" asked Britz, favoring his subordinate with a smile of approval.

"He cried like a woman," replied Muldoon. "Said he hadn't done anything and wanted to give me ten dollars to let him go. The papers, he kept saying, belonged to his boss and he didn't intend to steal them. Evidently he thinks he's been arrested for stealin' the papers."

Britz found the prisoner in a state of collapse. Opening the door of the butler's cell, he dragged the shivering inmate into the narrow corridor and forced him against the wall. With drooping head and sagging body, the butler regarded Britz as though afraid the detective had come to execute him on the spot.

Nor did the attitude which Britz adopted toward the prisoner tend to relieve his terror.

"So you thought you'd elope with the papers I went to all the trouble to gather?" snarled the detective. "You thought you could fool the police--eh!"

"No, sir! No, sir, I didn't," quavered the prisoner. "I didn't mean to fool you. I didn't know you were a detective. I know you said so, but anybody could say so and show a badge. I took the papers because I thought Mr. Beard might need them. And ever since I've been in hiding for fear I'd be arrested! To-day I made up my mind to deliver them to Mr. Beard. I was afraid to approach that awful looking jail, but finally I did so and a detective immediately arrested me. He was awfully rough," complained the butler. "He hurt my wrists and tore my collar. I gave the papers to him without any struggle--really, sir, if I'd met you I should have given them to you."

Britz thrust the butler back into the cell and closed the door.

"Won't you please let me go?" pleaded the prisoner, clutching frantically at the bar. "I haven't done anything."

Unheedful of the man's appeal, the detective ascended the iron stairs and hastened into his private office. He found Manning and Greig seated at his desk scrutinizing the papers.

"Anything of value in them?" asked Britz.

"Not yet," returned the chief. "But we haven't finished with them."

Britz applied himself to the documents, his eyes racing through them in futile search of something that might shed a welcome illumination on the dark complexities of the case. But the papers contained nothing of worth to the police. Mostly they related to Whitmore's business affairs, which apparently were in a healthy and flourishing condition.

With a shrug of disappointment the detective flung the last of the documents from him.

"Wasted labor!" he observed to the chief. "Might as well return them to Beard."

"Here is one we haven't examined," said Manning, offering a long, white envelope to Britz. "I don't know whether we are justified in opening it."

The back of the envelope had been sealed with wax in three places, and the seals were still undisturbed. Across the front of it was written,--

"Last will and testament of Herbert Whitmore."

Britz regarded the envelope with covetous eyes.

"There is no law which prevents the police from examining a murdered man's will," he remarked. "I suppose the proper thing would be to open it in the presence of the attorney for the deceased. But we are all disinterested witnesses so far as the document is concerned, so we'll proceed to examine it."

With a penknife Britz slit open the long edge of the envelope and, without waiting for authorization from his chief, spread the document before him. It consisted of three sheets of legal cap, to the last page of which Whitmore's signature and the names of two witnesses were affixed.

"Two pages of minor bequests," commented Britz as he finished reading the second sheet of the will.

On the final paragraph of the third sheet, the detective's eyes lingered a long while. Half a dozen times he reread the significant clause, then passed it to the chief. Manning perused it with widening orbs, finally handing the paper to Greig. The latter absorbed the contents at a glance and returned the paper to Britz.

"So Mrs. Collins inherits the residue--practically the entire Whitmore estate!" exclaimed Manning. "What does it mean?"

Greig bounded out of his seat as if released by a spring. He stood a moment as if to fling out a loud cry of exultation, but the serious expression on the faces of the others checked his ardor. A shade of doubt flitted across his face, but vanished instantly and was succeeded by a look which seemed to imply a sudden clearness of vision.

"Yes, by George! it's as plain as daylight!" he burst forth. "She's the one--I suspected her all the time! Now we have it--the motive and the explanation of her silence! Her brother a bankrupt, perhaps a defaulter. A fugitive, too! Her money sunk, her husband's money lost! She knew she was the chief beneficiary of the will--don't you see what Whitmore's death meant to her? We've deluded ourselves into the belief that it was to her interest to keep Whitmore alive. What chumps we were."

Britz's glance was alternating between the excited Greig and the impassive Manning, contrasting the riotous enthusiasm of the one with the quiet deliberation of the other.

"What do you think of it, chief?" he asked.

"I think we ought to put it up to her good and strong," advised Manning. "Threaten to lock her up if she doesn't explain."

"She's a clever one, all right," pursued Greig. "Went to Beard's house to get the letter that her brother had written! They were begging Whitmore for money. Don't you see the game? Whitmore turned them down. So what was there to do except to kill him and get his estate?"

To the impressionable mind of Greig the evidence against Mrs. Collins was conclusive. The grave, complex problem that had baffled his superiors had suddenly simplified itself. A woman needed money; she could obtain it through another's death. What more reasonable than that she should go forth and slay him?

Britz's more penetrating mind, however, did not find the solution so easily. It discovered a multitude of contradictions which eluded the narrower vision of his subordinate. Nevertheless he was compelled to concede that the aspect of the entire case had changed, that Mrs. Collins now loomed as a figure not to be disregarded.

"I understand that policemen were sent to clear the corridor outside of Ward's office?" inquired Britz.

"Yes," responded Manning.

"Well, send a man down there to call off the police. Let him encourage the crowd to remain."

The lines in Manning's forehead gathered in perplexity between his eyebrows.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"I'm going to put Mrs. Collins to the test."

The chief and Greig watched Britz in a sort of dumb bewilderment while he lifted the telephone receiver off the hook and called up the Collins house. After five minutes of anxious waiting, a voice at the other end of the wire responded.

"Is Mrs. Collins at home?" asked Britz.

"Who wishes to speak with her?"

"This is Mr. Luckstone's office," said the detective. "Mr. Luckstone--the attorney for Mr. Whitmore."

Evidently a maid had answered the call, for a long silence ensued while the servant carried Britz's message to her mistress. Finally a voice at the other end of the wire said:

"This is Mrs. Collins!"

Britz pressed the receiver tightly to his ear, as if afraid that some word of hers might escape his hearing.

"Mr. Luckstone wishes me to say that Mr. Whitmore's will has been found," said the detective.

If the woman realized the significance of the information, her voice did not betray it.

"Well?" she exclaimed, as if the subject held but a mild interest for her.

"Mr. Whitmore has named you as the chief beneficiary," Britz continued in even tones. "You have inherited practically his entire estate."

The news provoked no cry of elation, no exclamation of surprise, no revealing remark of any kind. Simply a non-committal "Yes!" It might have been the indifferent acceptance of information which she knew must eventually come to her; it might have been the meaningless affirmation of stunned surprise.

Britz decided he had accomplished his purpose, so he hung up the receiver without engaging in further parley.

"Setting one of your famous traps--eh?" beamed Manning.

"Yes--for the guilty one," admitted Britz.

"You have no doubt that she did the trick?" interjected Greig.

"I have no opinion in the matter," Britz informed him curtly. "I may have a most decided one, however, in an hour or so."

"Well, what do you think is going to happen now?" drawled Manning. While he guessed that Britz was setting the stage for a grand climax, he had not the remotest idea of its nature.

"She knows now that she has inherited Whitmore's fortune," said Britz with slow emphasis. "In view of what has happened to-day, there is but one obvious course for her to pursue. She may do it indirectly, through attorneys. She may elect to do it herself. We shall see."

It was an unsatisfying explanation, revealing nothing of the detective's hidden purpose. But Manning was unable to entice a more explicit statement from his subordinate. So he instructed a detective to proceed to Ward's office and direct the policemen on guard there to withdraw to their precinct station.

"I'm burning up with curiosity," acknowledged the chief, "but I suppose I shall have to wait until you're ready to confide what you're about."

"You'll not have to wait very long," Britz promised. "It's a case now of instant success or instant failure."

Gathering the documents which had been recovered from the butler, Britz deposited them on a small table at the other end of the room.

"You may tie them up and send them to Beard," he instructed Greig. "We'll hold the butler for the present. He may be of use."

The detective next obtained a telegraph blank and despatched the following message:

"_Anderson, Chief of Police, Atlanta, Ga._:

"Please engage lawyer in behalf of one Timson, alias Arthur Travis, now in Atlanta prison. Have writ of habeas corpus sworn out as soon as possible and explain matters to Federal attorney down there. Adhere to line we discussed on my recent visit. Put Timson, when discharged, on board first train and have one of your men accompany him to this city. This department will meet all expenses.

"BRITZ."

The detective waited until his assistant had tied up the bundle of documents; then, lifting the will from his desk and slipping it into his pocket, he said:

"Come on, Greig! We're going down to Ward's office. There's going to be an explosion."