He looked at his watch.
“It wants three minutes. Have you any suggestion to offer?”
She shook her head.
“I can floor the prosecution,” Mr. Mann went on, “but what I cannot do is to find the murderer for certain. It is obviously one of three men. It is either Sergeant Crawley, alias Smith, about whose antecedents Mr. Minute made an inquiry, or Jasper Cole, the secretary, or—”
He shrugged his shoulders.
It was not necessary to say who was the third suspect.
There came a knock at the door, and the clerk announced Inspector Nash. That stout and stoical officer gave a noncommittal nod to Mr. Mann and a smiling recognition to the girl.
“Well, you know how matters stand, Inspector,” said Mr. Mann briskly, “and I thought I’d ask you to come here today to straighten a few things out.”
“It is rather irregular, Mr. Mann,” said the inspector, “but as they’ve no objection at headquarters, I don’t mind telling you, within limits, all that I know; but I don’t suppose I can tell you any more than you have found out for yourself.”
“Do you really think Mr. Merrill committed this crime?” asked the girl.
The inspector raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips.
“It looks uncommonly like it, miss,” he said. “We have evidence that the bank has been robbed, and it is almost certainly proved that Merrill had access to the books and was the only person in the bank who could have faked the figures and transferred the money from one account to another without being found out. There are still one or two doubtful points to be cleared up, but there is the motive, and when you’ve got the motive you are three parts on your way to finding the criminal. It isn’t a straightforward case by any means,” he confessed, “and the more I go into it the more puzzled I am. I don’t mind telling you this frankly: I have seen Constable Wiseman, who swears that at the moment the shots were fired he saw a light flash in the upper window. We have the statement of Mr. Cole that he was in his room, his employer having requested that he should make himself scarce when the nephew came, and he tells us how somebody opened the door quietly and flashed an electric torch upon him.”
“What was Cole doing in the dark?” asked Mann quickly.
“He had a headache and was lying down,” said the inspector. “When he saw the light he jumped up and made for it, and was immediately slugged; the door closed upon him and was locked. Between his leaving the bed and reaching the door he heard Mr. Merrill’s voice threatening his uncle, and the shots. Immediately afterward he was rendered insensible.”
“A curious story,” said Saul Arthur Mann dryly. “A very curious story!”
The girl felt an unaccountable and altogether amazing desire to defend Jasper against the innuendo in the other’s tone, and it was with difficulty that she restrained herself.
“I don’t think it is a good story,” said the inspector frankly; “but that is between ourselves. And then, of course,” he went on, “we have the remarkable behavior of Sergeant Smith.”
“Where is he?” asked Mr. Mann.
The inspector shrugged his shoulders.
“Sergeant Smith has disappeared,” he said, “though I dare say we shall find him before long. He is only one; the most puzzling element of all is the fourth man concerned, the man who arrived in the motor car and who was evidently Mr. Rex Holland. We have got a very full description of him.”
“I also have a very full description of him,” said Mr. Mann quietly; “but I’ve been unable to identify him with any of the people in my records.”
“Anyway, it was his car; there is no doubt about that.”
“And he was the murderer,” said Mr. Mann. “I’ve no doubt about that, nor have you.”
“I have doubts about everything,” replied the inspector diplomatically.
“What was in the car?” asked the little man brightly. He was rapidly recovering his good humor.
“That I am afraid I cannot tell you,” smiled the detective.
“Then I’ll tell you,” said Saul Arthur Mann, and, stepping up to his desk, took a memorandum from a drawer. “There were two motor rugs, two holland coats, one white, one brown. There were two sets of motor goggles. There was a package of revolver cartridges, from which six had been extracted, a leather revolver holster, a small garden trowel, and one or two other little things.”
Inspector Nash swore softly under his breath.
“I’m blessed if I know how you found all that out,” he said, with a little asperity in his voice. “The car was not touched or searched until we came on the scene, and, beyond myself and Sergeant Mannering of my department, nobody knows what the car contained.”
Saul Arthur Mann smiled, and it was a very happy and triumphant smile.
“You see, I know!” he purred. “That is one point in Merrill’s favor.”
“Yes,” agreed the detective, and smiled.
“Why do you smile, Mr. Nash?” asked the little man suspiciously.
“I was thinking of a county policeman who seems to have some extraordinary theories on the subject.”
“Oh, you mean Wiseman,” said Mann, with a grin. “I’ve interviewed that gentleman. There is a great detective lost in him, Inspector.”
“It is lost, all right,” said the detective laconically. “Wiseman is very certain that Merrill committed the crime, and I think you are going to have a difficulty in persuading a jury that he didn’t. You see Merrill’s story is that he came
