Britz was too well aware of the average woman's distorted notion of abstract justice to accept her statement at its face value. Woman by her very nature is incapable of appreciating or applying impartial justice, and her incapacity grows in proportion to her immediate interest in the matter involved. This latter might apply with equal force to the average man; but man, less governed by emotions, will permit his sense of justice to prevail when not blinded by personal interest. Abstract justice will frequently appeal to him and he will act with rational regard for its proper application. To a woman's eyes, however, justice invariably shapes itself as her emotions dictate.
Britz, mindful of the fact that with a woman justice and self-interest are inextricably interwoven, immediately began to search for the visitor's selfish motive in offering to surrender the murderer, if, indeed, she meant to surrender the real perpetrator of the crime and not to shield him behind someone against whom she held a grievance.
"Who is the man you wish to surrender?" he asked with aggravating calmness.
"George Collins," she replied without hesitancy.
"What evidence have you that he committed the crime?"
"He often threatened to kill Mr. Whitmore. He told me of his intention innumerable times in the past six weeks."
"Have you any evidence bearing on the act itself—on the killing, I mean?"
"How can I have?" she replied with a faint smile. "He didn't invite me to see him do it."
"Then you simply believe he committed the murder because he had threatened to do so?"
In a carefully planned murder it is always safe to mistrust the obvious. Beard's outburst against Collins had seemed a genuine eruption of uncontrollable emotions, at first. But his subsequent conduct had given his words the aspect of shrewd premeditation. Now she appeared intent on fastening guilt on Collins. Her very anxiety to do so implied a hidden motive. It was necessary to be on guard against trickery.