“I can ask no more,” returned Charles Clifton, arising to depart. “The confronting of that man with Ranelagh will cause the latter to unseal his lips. Before you have finished with my client, you will esteem him much more highly than you do now.”
The district attorney smiled at what seemed the callow enthusiasm of a youthful lawyer; but the coroner who knew his district well, looked very thoughtfully down at the table before which he sat, and failed to raise his head until the young man had vanished from the room and his place had been taken by another of very different appearance and deportment. Then he roused himself and introduced the newcomer to the prosecuting attorney as Caleb Sweetwater, of the New York police department.
Caleb Sweetwater was no beauty. He was plain-featured to the point of ugliness; so plain-featured that not even his quick, whimsical smile could make his face agreeable to one who did not know his many valuable qualities. His receding chin and far too projecting nose were not likely to create a favourable impression on one ignorant of his cheerful, modest, winsome disposition; and the district attorney, after eyeing him for a moment with ill-concealed disfavour, abruptly suggested:
“You have brought some credentials with you, I hope.”
“Here is a letter from one of the department. Mr. Gryce wrote it,” he added, with just a touch of pride.
“The letter is all right,” hastily remarked Dr. Perry on looking it over. “Mr. Sweetwater is commended to us as a man of sagacity and becoming reserve.”
“Very good. To business, then. The sooner we get to work on this new theory, the better. Mr. Sweetwater, we have some doubts if the man we have in hand is the man we really want. But first, how much do you know about this case?”
“All that’s in the papers.”
“Nothing more?”
“Very little. I’ve not been in town above an hour.”