“I don’t see it,” Maxwell objected.
“Don’t you? When we reached the scene of the hold-up, I was already doubting the heavy-dead-man theory; doubting it extremely. Also, my reason told me that the robbers, carrying some weight which was heavier than any dead person, would not trust to a team which could be overtaken, if need be, by pursuers on foot. Hence the automobile track that we found. Then we came to the coffin, and half of the mystery vanished at once. If you hadn’t been excited and—well, let us say, prepossessed, you would have noticed that there was no smell of disinfectants, that the coffin pillow wasn’t dented with the print of a head, that the broken glass was lying on the pillow, as it wouldn’t have been if the man’s head had been there when the plate was smashed, that——”
“Great Scott,” Maxwell broke in, in honest self-depreciation, “what blind bats we are—most of us!”
“Oh, no; I was bringing the specially trained mind to bear, you must remember; the scientifically trained mind. You couldn’t afford to cultivate it; it wouldn’t leave room for your business of railroad managing. But I’ll cut it short. I saw that there had been no corpse in the coffin, and that there had been something else in it—something heavy enough to leave its marks on the silk lining, which was torn and soiled. Also, I saw, away down in the foot end of the thing, an ingot-shaped chunk of something that looked like a bar of gold bullion; one piece of the heavy coffin load that had been overlooked in the hurried emptying. That’s why I advised you to bring the coffin back on your train. There’s a ten-thousand-dollar gold brick in it, right now!”
“Heavens and earth!” gasped the listener; but Sprague went on rapidly.
“Just here is where your machine-made detective would have missed the emphasis. But the scientist, having once for good and sufficient reasons placed his emphasis, never has occasion to change it. The main thing yet was the stopping of your messenger to Ford. I was convinced that the gold robbery, in which, of course, not only the two young lessees, but the man Murtrie as well, must be implicated, was only a side-issue, intended either to divert attention from the main thing, or as a double-cross theft on the part of Murtrie. When you and Tarbell described Murtrie for me on the way back to town, I had it all, simply because I happened to know the man. He is a counterfeiter, whom I have twice run down for the Department of Justice; but who, both times, contrived to break jail and get away.”
“But how were you able to strike so sure and hard at Holladay’s?”
“Just a bit more reasoning; as you’ll see presently. After we had established the fact that Calmaine wasn’t on the train—but argue it out for yourself. They’d take him somewhere where he could be kept safe and out of the way until the criminals concerned were all securely out of the country. And where would they take him if not to the unlawful den out yonder on the pike where Murtrie was best known, and from which, no doubt, he secured his helpers for the hold-up job?”
“But hold on,” Maxwell interrupted. “I haven’t got it entirely clear yet. If Murtrie put up this job with Calthrop and Higgins——”
Sprague shook his head.