Chapter 17

Collins obeyed. Not voluntarily, but because he was unable to resist the domination of the detective's will. Also, a terrible fear had gripped his heart, producing a terror that sobered him and gave him command of all his faculties.

"Who are these men?" inquired Britz, nodding toward Cooper and Fanwell.

"Friends of mine," growled Collins.

"I wish to speak with you, Collins," said the detective. "Do you want them to remain?"

"I do."

"You prefer to have witnesses present?"

"I wouldn't talk to you without them," said Collins.

"But I want to give you an opportunity to explain certain things in connection with Mr. Whitmore's death."

A crafty expression overspread Collins's face.

"Look here, officer!" he exclaimed, a weak smile on his lips. "I'm no boob!" Obviously, he meant this lapse into the slang of the Tenderloin to convey his intimate knowledge of police methods. "You can't soft-soap me! You don't want explanations! You want me to get myself in bad. But you won't get anything out of me. I know my rights."

This defiant speech produced an effect opposite to what Collins had intended. The detective banished the note of persuasion from his voice and adopted an accusing tone, heightened by a manner almost ferocious.

"You don't want to get yourself in bad!" he snarled. "Well, you're in so bad now that you can't possibly get in worse. You threatened to kill Whitmore. You knew that he had discovered your double life! You intercepted the letter which he had sent to your wife."

Collins's pale face had grown paler. So the detective knew of the intercepted letter! Where did he obtain knowledge of it? Only those immediately concerned in the case were aware of its existence. Who had told the police of it?

"What letter are you talking about?" Collins made a bold pretense at ignorance.

"This letter," Britz produced the note which Whitmore had sent to Mrs. Collins.

On seeing the familiar handwriting Collins leaped out of his chair.

"Where'd you get it?" he demanded.

"Sit down!" commanded Britz. "I'll tell you when I get ready. You showed the letter to your wife and she decided to leave you. Then you started forth to kill Whitmore. But he had disappeared. He did not return for six weeks. Then, one day he came back. He was found in his office dead, with a bullet in his body. This is the bullet."

Britz held the leaden pellet between his fingers, then laid it on the table.

"It was taken from Whitmore's body," he explained. "It was fired from a 32-caliber revolver--in fact from this very weapon."

From his coat pocket Britz produced the weapon, a gleaming steel revolver of the hammerless variety.

"Do you recognize it?" he inquired, extending it toward Collins.

Collins's hand did not reach for the weapon. All his confidence had vanished. Fear seemed to paralyze him.

"That isn't all," proceeded the detective with aggravating assurance. "The chambers in this revolver were filled from a box of fifty cartridges. There are five chambers. After the shooting the chambers were emptied and the unused shells returned to the box. Here is the box."

This time Britz offered Collins a small pasteboard box, but Collins shrank from it as if afraid it might explode in his hand.

"You will observe," Britz went on, "that there are forty-nine cartridges left in the box. One is missing--the one that was exploded. Now Collins"--the detective's jaw snapped viciously--"you've decided to remain silent! Well, I've shown you some mute witnesses whose testimony will be understood perfectly by a jury."

All the blood had drained from Collins's face. A violent tremor racked his frame.

"Where'd you get them?" he asked helplessly.

"In your house," answered the detective. "I searched the premises this afternoon."

Collins looked appealingly from the detective to his friends. They had listened to Britz's recital with impassive countenances, and their expressions did not change as they met Collins's gaze.

"What right had you to search my house?" demanded Collins. "I'm not accused of any crime."

"Not yet," agreed Britz. "But the circumstances which I have mentioned may make it necessary for a formal accusation to be lodged against you."

Again Collins displayed remarkable recuperative power. A few moments ago he had seemed on the verge of utter collapse. Now he stiffened with a new accession of courage. Britz, studying this weakling, discerned unmistakable signs that Collins's courage was not drawn from any internal spring. It was communicated to him from without, probably by some dominating mind to whose guidance he had agreed to submit. His strength was continually replenished through reliance on someone in whose judgment he had an abiding faith; a faith that even Britz's convincing recital of condemning circumstances was unable to shake. The detective determined to ascertain who had advised Collins, who had outlined rules for his safe conduct through the tortuous channels into which he had plunged when he announced his intention of killing Whitmore.

"Do you wish to advise with anyone before answering my questions?" asked Britz.

"I won't talk--I won't do anything without the consent of my lawyer."

"Oh, so you've engaged a lawyer!" sneered Britz, as if he interpreted the hiring of an attorney as additional proof of guilt. "Who is he?"

"Mr. Thomas Luckstone." Collins could see no harm in revealing that one of the shrewdest lawyers in the city was looking after his interests.

"And he has advised you to remain silent?"

"I've been around this town long enough to learn the value of silence. Luckstone didn't have to tell me that."

"Well, what's the use of trying to give you a chance?" Britz fired at him. "I've got enough evidence now to convict you. I guess I'll just proceed to lock you up and let Luckstone try to get you out."

Ever since Whitmore's death Collins had been steeling himself for precisely this situation. He was sufficiently experienced in the ways of the world to know that the police investigation must eventually lead to him. This belief was confirmed daily as he read the developments of the case in the newspapers. Soon or late, the police would demand that he explain his conduct. And failure to do so would be fraught with sure consequences.

Britz, silently analyzing Collins's refusal to unbosom himself, concluded that only some extreme measure could drag the truth from his unwilling lips. It was to be seen that life in jail held no allurements for Collins. Ordinarily he would fight desperately against even temporary detention. That he was ready to submit unprotestingly now, argued an acquiescence in some agreement into which he and the other suspects had entered for mutual safety and protection. Under pressure of third degree methods Collins might falter, but in the end his natural suspicion and dislike for the police, combined with the advice which his lawyer had imparted to him, would prevail over the best efforts of his inquisitors.

At any rate, Britz recognized that the time had not arrived for exerting the full measure of authority over Collins. So he determined to change his tactics, but in a way not to inspire Collins with an exultant sense of victory.

Britz passed a wink to Fanwell, who nodded understandingly. Up to this time no glint of recognition had passed between them, and they were careful to hide their silent signal from Collins.

Ostentatiously, and with some display of temper, Britz removed the revolver and the other exhibits from the table and restored them to his pockets. After which he produced a pair of handcuffs, opening one of the steel bracelets with a sharp click.

"Collins, extend your wrist!" he commanded, thrusting forward the open ring.

Before Collins had time to obey, Fanwell discarded the air of aloofness with which he had watched the proceedings and stepped between the two men.

"This is an outrage!" he exclaimed, addressing Britz. "What right have you to come here and question this man, then arrest him without a warrant? I protest against these proceedings! I won't permit Mr. Collins to submit!"

Britz turned fiercely on him.

"Who are you?" he roared, as if aroused to a burning fury.

"I am a friend of Mr. Collins," returned Fanwell. "I won't permit a friend of mine to be dragged to prison this way."

"Be careful--you are interfering with an officer of the law," cautioned Britz.

"If you arrest him you might as well arrest me too," said Fanwell. "But you won't keep us behind the bars long. I'm from the West, but thank goodness! I have unlimited credit here. I know where to obtain bail--in any amount."

"The charge against this man is murder in the first degree," Britz retorted. "The crime is not bailable."

The information seemed to stagger Fanwell. He bestowed a compassionate glance on the bewildered Collins, then executed a despairing gesture as if he meant to convey that the situation had passed out of his hands.

"Collins, I believe you're innocent. Why don't you speak and clear yourself?" urged Fanwell.

Coming, as it seemingly did, from a disinterested friend, the advice struck Collins with peculiar force. He wavered, and, to encourage his growing desire to talk, Britz withdrew the handcuffs.

"Let me think it over," he pleaded. "Perhaps I may change my mind--and tell you everything."

"Better follow your friend's advice," urged Britz. "He has no self-interest to serve. If you wait to consult with others, they'll only advise you in a way that will best serve their interests, not yours. Don't you think I'm right?" Britz asked Fanwell.

"Yes," came the quick reply.

"What do you think of it?" the detective asked Cooper.

"I'm an old friend of George," he answered. "I should advise him to clear himself at once."

It did not occur to Collins that these three men were playing the same game; that they were ranked in coalition against him. But before his mind there hovered perpetually a vague presentiment of danger, that made him mistrust his own impulse to yield to their urging.

"I can't do it!" he exclaimed despondently. "You wouldn't understand--and you wouldn't believe me."

"If your story is true it ought to be easy enough to furnish proof of it," retorted Britz.

The pitiless baiting to which Collins was being subjected was beginning to tell on him. He turned his poor, befuddled head to one side, then to the other. His eyes shot mute appeals for help, but no answering gleam of compassion came from the others. They regarded him with cold, stolid faces, expressionless as death masks.

"Why can't you leave me alone?" pleaded Collins. "I didn't kill Whitmore."

The denial was uttered in the tone of a fervent plea, but it made no visible impression on the detective.

"If you didn't do it, why don't you establish your innocence?" Britz pursued relentlessly.

"You haven't proved me guilty!" Collins fired back. Evidently something which Luckstone had told him flashed across his mind, for he seemed to come out of his bewildered state, and again he adopted an air of resolute opposition. "I won't say another word."

Britz met this altered attitude of Collins with a swift transformation of his own. His face contracted until every line seemed to harden into an expression of stern determination.

"Do you know why Julia Strong killed herself?" he snapped.

"Yes," said Collins weakly.

"Why?"

"She threatened to do it a dozen times. She wanted me to permit my wife to obtain a divorce so I could marry her."

Collins had been taken off his guard and Britz found it easy to follow up his advantage.

"You promised to marry her?" he inquired.

"I never told her so."

"But you led her to believe you would?"

"I wasn't responsible for what she believed."

"Now I'll tell you something," pursued the detective in a firm, subdued voice. "An hour before Julia Strong committed suicide she was in my office at Police Headquarters."

Collins started as if jarred by a hateful sound.

"I--I--don't believe it," he faltered.

"She was there," said Britz, ignoring the other's remark. "Moreover, she accused you of having killed Whitmore. She did it in the presence of a witness, and, although she was unaware of it, her statement was taken down by a hidden stenographer."

"Then why did she commit suicide?" blurted Collins, as if her death contradicted the detective's statement.

"She betrayed you because you had betrayed her. She thought you and your wife had become reconciled. Then, when she received your note--the one that Beard brought her--she believed you meant, after all, to marry her. In a fit of remorse at having betrayed you, she killed herself."

"Why do you tell me this?" asked Collins suspiciously.

"To show you what an overwhelming mass of evidence we have against you. And to give you a last opportunity to explain."

Collins's eyes traveled about the room, lingering on the various objects that were so intimately associated with the woman whom he had thought so loyal.

"So she too was ready to turn against me!" He shook his head in a self-pitying way. "The one person who, I thought, would never desert me!" His eyes took on a fixidity, as if gazing at a distant object. "Money gone!" he murmured, as if talking to himself. "Girl dead--a traitor! Home broken! What's the use?"

The others watched him silently, breathlessly, their eyes lighted with eager expectancy. Collins had sunk into that state of complete despondency wherein even the primal instinct of self-preservation is weakened to the point of extinction. Britz had applied the much-abused and publicly misunderstood third degree in a manner shrewdly calculated to shatter the resisting qualities of the victim's will. By alternately tyrannizing over and cajoling the prisoner--for Collins virtually was a prisoner--he had finally produced in him a condition of mind that invariably leads to confession.

"Well, Collins!" Britz smiled encouragingly. "Only one man can save you--that's yourself. You know as well as I how quickly the others would sacrifice you to save themselves. If you permit them to destroy you, you have only yourself to blame."

Collins lifted his head and met the steady gaze of the detective. The last ounce of resistance had departed from his weak nature. He was ready to yield. But a sudden interruption occurred to divert the attention of those in the room. Someone was banging violently on the door. Britz motioned the others not to leave their chairs, hoping that whoever was seeking admittance would conclude that the apartment was unoccupied and leave. But the banging continued until finally the detective was moved to open the door.

A man burst into the room, brushing past Britz and precipitating his figure into the sitting room.

"Luckstone!" exclaimed Collins, bounding out of his chair.

The lawyer gazed angrily from his client to Britz.

"What does this mean?" he demanded.

"It means that Mr. Collins has dispensed with your services and is ready to confide in me," answered the detective with calm assurance.

Luckstone's eyes narrowed on Collins. The latter nodded a weak assent to the detective's words.

"I've been searching for you all evening," the lawyer burst forth excitedly. "Called up your house, went to the club and finally took a chance on finding you here. I was afraid something like this might happen. I hope you haven't communicated anything to these men."

"Oh, what's the good of remaining silent any longer?" asked Collins surlily.

"What's the good!" repeated the lawyer with a rising inflection. "Do you wish to spoil everything? Do you want to condemn yourself?"

"What!" shouted Collins, now beside himself with rage. "Condemn myself! What do you mean?"

"I mean that if you say a single word, I shall withdraw as your counsel and permit the law to take its course."

"Then you're trying to intimate that I killed Whitmore!" Collins took a step forward, a look of horrified amazement on his face. "So there's a conspiracy now to shift it on to me--eh! Now that I've been robbed and left penniless--"

"You're not penniless," interjected the lawyer. "Your money is intact."

Collins's eyes expanded into an expression of incredulous wonder.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded savagely. "Are you trying to fool me? My money's in Ward's bank--"

"And every creditor will be paid in full," interrupted the lawyer.

"Who's going to pay them?" sneered Collins.

"Your wife."

A loud peal of ironic laughter burst from Collins's lips. But Luckstone silenced the sarcastic merriment with the remark,--

"She has inherited Mr. Whitmore's estate and announced her determination to repay every dollar of her brother's obligations. This police officer,"--he pointed a contemptuous finger toward Britz--"will confirm what I say."

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. All the enchantment had suddenly passed out of his life, for, to one of his disposition, a liberal income is as necessary as water to a parched plant. Deprived of his fortune, existence wasn't worth while. But with the certainty that his money would be restored to him, life regained all its roseate tints. As the future outlook cleared and he saw that he could return to his indolent mode of living, a sudden reaction took place within him, filling him with a sullen aversion for the detective who had so nearly beguiled him into committing an irreparable breach of faith--if nothing worse. And he turned fiercely on Britz.

"So you tried to entrap me!" he exclaimed with bitter emphasis. "But you didn't succeed, did you? And from now on I shall remain in the hands of Mr. Luckstone, my attorney."

"That is the sensible thing to do," commended the lawyer.

"Why, he threatened to handcuff me and take me to jail if I didn't tell him all about Mr. Whitmore's death," complained Collins.

Luckstone turned to face Britz. He found the detective as imperturbable as though he were but a disinterested spectator in this exciting drama.

"So you had it in mind to make another prisoner?" the lawyer said sneeringly. "You've got Mr. Beard in the Tombs and you have Mrs. Collins at Headquarters--"

"What--he arrested my wife?" Collins asked excitedly. "Is she accused of murder?"

"Calm yourself," the lawyer cautioned him. "This detective is so befuddled he doesn't know whether he's walking on his head or his feet. He's just running around helter-skelter arresting everybody he comes in contact with, regardless of whether he has sufficient evidence or not. In fact, he hasn't any evidence--not a particle against anyone. But he hopes to browbeat somebody into incriminating himself or somebody else--it doesn't matter whom so long as the victim will help the police to make out a case that will justify an indictment by the Grand Jury. Mr. Detective-Lieutenant Britz is on a grand fishing expedition, throwing out bait--"

"You are mistaken," Britz now interrupted the lawyer. "I am not throwing out bait. I am about to draw in my lines, with the fish securely hooked."