"Now what is the inevitable conclusion? Why, he was courting arrest. More than that, he was thrusting evidence on us—evidence which would assure his indictment and trial before a petit jury.
"Do you think he was doing it because he wanted to be convicted? Or do you think Luckstone would have permitted him to leave this evidence lying about except to delude us? Not for an instant.
"No, chief, Luckstone had some design of his own in thus urging us to the conclusion that Collins was the guilty man. But I saw the trap which his crafty brain devised. Luckstone has evidence with which to offset everything we could bring forward against Collins. He planned to make a colossal fool of the prosecution. Being absolutely sure of obtaining Collins's acquittal, he wanted us to proceed with our case against him. He wanted us to commit ourselves to Collins's guilt, to bring Collins to trial, so as to preclude us from proceeding against the real murderer when we ascertained his identity. In other words, he figured that if we declared our belief in Collins guilt and forced him to trial, we'd be glad to drop the case and permit the public to forget it, after Collins was acquitted.
"Did Collins actually commit the murder?" Britz shook his head gravely. "You can bet your last dollar he didn't. In the first place, had he fired the shot, Luckstone would have worked furiously to divert suspicion from him. Every bit of damaging evidence would have been destroyed. It was because Luckstone knew that Collins was innocent that he was willing we should accuse him of the crime.
"Equally convincing is the attitude of the others in the case. You must remember none of them had any use for Collins. Had he shot Whitmore, a chorus of accusations would have gone up instantly. His own wife would have volunteered to become a witness against him. She loved Whitmore and hated Collins. Ward would have denounced him in unmistakable terms. Beard would have been shouting his guilt from the housetops. Far from uniting in a conspiracy to shield him, they would have allied themselves with us to avenge the death of the merchant."
Manning and Greig were listening with faculties intensely alert, carried along by the irresistible course of Britz's logic. They were compelled to acknowledge to themselves that Collins had been effectually eliminated as the murderer. But on whom would Britz fasten the crime?
"Now let us take up Beard," proceeded the detective as if narrating a commonplace happening in the routine of police duty. "He is named in Whitmore's will as one of the executors of the estate. But so is Luckstone! Surely that is no motive for murder. My men have investigated Beard's life. There's nothing in it to discredit him in the least. Moreover, we have ascertained that he was entirely devoted to Whitmore's interests. There was a great personal tie between the two men. The fact that he arranged the plot for Whitmore's escape and the substitution of prisoners, is but additional proof of his loyalty to his employer. We haven't a scintilla of evidence to connect him with his employer's murder."
Manning and Greig exchanged significant looks. Evidently the same question had flashed across their minds. Were Ward and Mrs. Collins in a conspiracy to kill Whitmore?
As if divining what was in their minds, Britz proceeded to answer their unspoken query.
"To attribute the crime to Mrs. Collins or Ward, or to both of them," the detective said, "it is first of all necessary to find a motive. Only one suggests itself. It is that they killed Whitmore to get possession of his estate.