“I have just one faint recollection. As I fainted the last time, the minister was saying something about a sacrifice. What did he mean?”
It was Bartley who spoke, and his words were, of course, untrue:
“I think you must have been mistaken,” was his short reply.
The girl shook her head as if in doubt, but settled back in her chair. In the silence there came the voice of the chief:
“How about the murder of the gardener?”
“That's more simple,” was the answer. “You must, of course, understand, Chief, that when the minister realized what he had done, he was torn between two conflicting emotions. First, of course, was the thought that he had done a good deed—he had saved his God from blasphemy. That idea grew upon him. It did not, however, do away with the other feeling. After all, he had committed a murder, and he knew it. In the few days after the crime he must have been fast approaching actual insanity.
“Then there came a startling fact. He was told that Patton would complete the book—the book which would give the world Warren's discovery. He had killed a man to prevent that book being written, and his crime was in vain. The world collapsed for him at the moment he realized that his crime had been useless.”
“But he did not know Patton,” barked out the chief.
“Yes, he did,” replied Carter. “I introduced them this morning.”
Bartley took up the thought. “Yes, he had met him. That's why he made his mistake. He knew the suit Patton was wearing. When he saw the back of the gardener as he turned to escape from the room, he thought it was Patton and shot him. In build, height and general appearance they were about the same.”