We wandered leisurely down to the Tokio. The story was wide open now. We were through. The morgue notified, Brady and Wilson stayed to attend to the routine, and Lanagan announced that he was going to Oakland.
We caught the paper boat, riding luxuriously on heaps of Enquirers. Thus it happened that we were at police headquarters there with the copies of our own paper before the route carriers had made their deliveries. Lanagan stepped to the ’phone and rang up Henley.
“Feel like buying a drink?” asked Lanagan.
Over the wire came back some hearty and measured compliments. “You’re sure in an amiable humour. Well, come down. You’ve got two prisoners to free. If conditions at your jail weren’t so rotten I wouldn’t say anything till morning. But I need a drink, which is on you, and the Watsons need a breath of fresh air.” In fifteen minutes Henley was with us.
He was a gallant officer, that Henley. When he had finished he wrung Lanagan’s hand until I thought he never would let go.
“Bring in the Watsons,” he ordered.
In a moment they came in, a weary, worn, misery-marked couple. It was their first meeting since their imprisonment. With a sob, asking no why or wherefore, Mrs. Watson fell into her husband’s arms and mingled her tears with his. Her sobs—weary, worn, tired little sobs—echoed softly under the vaulted ceiling.
“I am pleased to inform you,” Henley said grandly, “that through the efforts of our brilliant young friend of the Enquirer, the murderer of Miller has been located. You are free.”
Then followed such a scene of hysterical gladness and tearful, joyous explanations as Henley’s room, that had beheld many strange and unusual scenes, had never witnessed.
Of course Watson, when arrested, confronted with the hammer and told that his wife had confessed, had yielded to the third degree and, unable to accept the full horror of it, yet had swiftly formed his plan to confess to save the woman he loved, even though she might have done the deed.