“Why,” asked Loris, as Drew paused in thought. “Why did he have Morphy connected with father? I can’t see, Mr. Drew, that part of it. The rest, you have told is, is very clear.”
“Nor I yet,” admitted the detective. “But that is a detail. It is probably the criminal’s ego, which is in every one of them, to notify their prey that the hour has come. Morphy was an artist in crime. He was a master mind in finance and chicanery. What better revenge could he think of than to notify Mr. Stockbridge that death was about to strike? It savors of Machiavelli and Borgia. Whom the gods destroy they first make mad. He tried it on you.”
“Gods!” blurted Delaney with ire. “Devils, you mean, Chief!”
“Yes, or worse!” said Drew, glancing sternly at the prisoner. “This fellow,” he added, “is the agent for the destroyer. Now how was it done?”
Delaney glanced about the walls of the room in apprehension. “I’ll take another look around,” he suggested heavily. “Maybe with them new ideas we can locate something that might be planted for the killing.”
Drew glanced sharply at the prisoner’s face. A faint sneer was on the thin lips. The wrists twisted and turned in the handcuffs. The steel chain rattled metallically. Loris backed step after step toward the shielding curtain and Harry Nichols. “Oh!” she said suddenly, as she dropped her head against his breast. “Oh, Harry! there can’t be anything like that.”
“Certainly not!” Drew hastened to ejaculate. “That’s nonsense. If there was anything planted in either of these three rooms, there’s no one to get in and operate it. I’ve searched! Mr. Delaney has searched. Do you want us to search again?” Drew’s lips were drawn with doubt as he stared anxiously from Loris to Nichols. “I’ll do it, captain, if you say so. I think we’ve done enough work, however. The thing is to get this fellow to talk. I don’t want to give him over to Fosdick and the third degree till we see if he is going to treat us right. He can turn state’s evidence on Morphy, who blundered. Then he’ll get off lightly. Morphy is the master mind.”
“He only smiles,” said Nichols, tapping his breast suggestively. “I’ve a gun here and I’ve a mind to use it. Do you think I want Miss Stockbridge murdered like her father was murdered? I’ll shoot that cur! He’s a whispering snake! A Hun!”
“Don’t!” sobbed Loris, as Nichols thrust his hand in his coat and drew out a flat automatic of .44 caliber. “Don’t, Harry! Perhaps this man is innocent.”
“Innocent!” declared Nichols. “Why, Loris—why, Miss Stockbridge, you don’t think that, after all the things Mr. Drew has discovered. I’ll wager my commission he’s guilty as Hell, and I mean it, Loris.”