“Throw up your hands, or I’ll shoot,” came from the window, and there stood Trafford’s assistant, with pistol drawn and aimed at McManus.
At the very beginning of the story, he had raised the window and had since been listening to the conversation. McManus glanced at Trafford, who was also covering him with a pistol.
“I yield,” he said, “to force. You will find it all a hideous mistake before you get through.”
“Handcuff him.” Trafford gave the order. “I’ll keep my pistol on him.”
McManus turned toward the man who approached from the window. He seemed to have recovered his composure, and a puzzling smile was on his lips. Then, suddenly, the hand came up, without leaving the pocket, which was lifted with it; there was a slight turn of the hand seen through the cloth and the muffled report of the pistol. McManus fell, shot through the heart by his own hand.
“A damned bungling piece of work, to let that be done,” said Trafford. “There ’re steps on the stairs. Don’t open the door for a minute.”
He rushed into the bedroom, and seizing a tin box that stood on a stand by the bed, dropped it from the window into a dense mass of shrubbery that grew beneath. He was back in the room to answer the first knock at the door.
Millbank slept but little that night. The streets were thronged with people, and the story of the tragedy, the discovery of the murderer and his suicide, was repeated and re-repeated, with new details at every repetition. Before midnight it was surprising to know how many people had all along suspected McManus and felt certain that he “was no better than he should be.”
Frank Hunter came among the very first and went back and forth from the sitting room to the bedroom, with an uneasy air of searching for something and yet striving to conceal the fact. Trafford watched him with a curious expression on his face, as if he enjoyed the man’s awkwardness and embarrassment.
When Charles Matthewson arrived on the latest train and went directly to the Hunter house, Trafford was instantly informed and at once made up his mind to his line of action. McManus’s suicide was confession, and the possession of the papers was no longer necessary to conviction. Trafford determined to have them off his hands at the earliest possible moment, and with Matthewson in town, that promised to be before daylight. At the first opportunity he stole out, recovered possession of the box, and hid it in a less exposed place.