The Substitute Prisoner Part 21

"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 mult.i.tude 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 doc.u.ments 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 a.s.sistant had tied up the bundle of doc.u.ments; 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."

CHAPTER XIV

As the police withdrew from in front of Ward & Co.'s office, the crowd returned. It flowed into the corridor of the office building, a sullen, silent mob, full of repressed anger that required only the slightest spark to transform it into a roaring flame. They ma.s.sed about the locked door, gazing at the lettered panel as at a corpse.

Out in the street newsboys were crying the failure of the banking house.

They did a brisk business. Mourners everywhere are feverishly anxious to read of the deceased, his achievements and his failure and his demise.

And these mourners, gathered at the funeral of an inst.i.tution that held for them so vital an interest, devoured every detail of its expired life.

Inside the office, the clerks worked with their customary deliberation, tallying the accounts for the receiver. No tentative statement of a.s.sets and liability had been announced by the court's representative. He could have prepared a fairly accurate statement and posted it on the door. But he was a charitable man and wished to spare the depositors further anguish. Give them time to recover from the first great shock before inflicting a greater one, he argued. So he postponed the evil moment when he must reveal the wretched condition of the inst.i.tution.

Each time the door opened and a messenger left, the crowd set on him beseeching information of the financial condition of the private bank.

But the messengers had nothing to reveal.