An hour later, Albert Tremmels, clerk to Messrs. Ennidge and Pring, house agents, was arrested in his lodgings for the murders of Mrs. Vanderstein and Madame Querterot, and for the attempted murder of Miss Turner.
[CHAPTER XXIV]
Bert offered no resistance to the officers of the law. Indeed, after the first moment, he showed a kind of relief at his arrest, and went with his captors almost gladly.
“I knew you’d get me sooner or later,” he said, although warned that his words would be used against him, “and it’s best to get it over. Julie won’t ever forgive me, let alone have anything to do with me, so what have I got to live for? I can’t go on like this; no one could. Still, mind you, I’m not so much to blame as you think, and it’s my belief any one of you chaps would have done the same as I did, in my place.”
Bert had always been ready to justify himself.
He was willing enough to confess, to the police, to the prison chaplain, to anyone. He showed, indeed, considerable satisfaction, not to say pride, in the interest his story excited, and was not a little annoyed with Gimblet when he found there was practically nothing he could tell the detective of which he was not already aware. Bert did not dilate so much on his love for Julie, the one real thing about him and the innocent incentive of all his crimes.
It is perhaps best not to give the exact words in which he poured forth the history of the dark deeds in which he had been concerned, but to offer to the reader a résumé of his tale in so far as it was corroborated by the evidence.