"I don't know. How should I?"
"I merely wondered." For some reason I did not care to repeat that puzzling communication I had heard over the phone.
"I know nothing about him. If he has any family, they will probably come forward to claim the body. But I doubt very much that the man who fired the shot will ever be taken."
"What makes you so sure?"
"He planned things carefully. And he is probably supported this minute by a sense of right,--and my sympathies are with him."
He flung up his head with open defiance of my supposed prejudices.
"Don't forget that Barker may have committed some of his valuable secrets to writing," I warned.
He looked startled for a moment, then he threw up his head.
"I don't believe it. He's dead, and a good job done."
It was not my place to croak on such an occasion, but as I walked down the street to my own office, I reflected that the law would not look at a shot from ambush in that light, no matter what the judgment of the Lord might be.