"Let me tell my story first," interrupted Britz. "Mine's an eye-opener!"
The three men disposed themselves in comfortable attitudes about the chief's desk, bit the ends off fresh cigars, and prepared for a long interchange of information.
"Well, I discovered where Whitmore spent the six weeks of his absence from business," began Britz.
"Where?" The chief's face lit with an expression of eagerness.
"In jail," said Britz, and for the life of him he was unable to smother the smile that struggled to his lips. "Right here in the city," he added. "In the Tombs."
"Well, I'll be hung!" In his astonishment, the chief could think of no adequate exclamation beyond the commonplace one which issued from his widely parted lips.
"Yes," pursued Britz, "Greig and I have been treated to a series of surprises—even now I haven't recovered entirely from my bewilderment."
"Well, go ahead and spring them," urged Manning. "They can't be much more astounding than the one I've bumped into."
"In the first place," said Britz, arranging in chronological order in his mind, the incidents which he was about to narrate, "the man that was captured trying to break into the post office at Delmore Park, was Herbert Whitmore. Judging from the statements of Julia Strong and the butler in the Whitmore house, it is obvious that Whitmore sent a letter to Mrs. Collins, with whom he was in love. Something transpired to make him regret having sent the note and he decided to steal it out of the post office. He was caught before he had succeeded in 'jimmying' the door, so that the letter must have been delivered at the Collins house. I take it, from the threats which Collins made against Whitmore, that he intercepted the note and that a lively scene between him and his wife followed.
"As for Whitmore, he did a most sensible thing. He kept his identity effectually concealed. Before arriving at the post office he had disguised himself in cheap, shabby clothes, so that when he was captured no one thought he was other than an ordinary burglar. At the police station, and subsequently in the Federal court, he gave his name as Arthur Travis. It was such an unusual name for a cheap post office burglar that I determined instantly there was some connection between the attempted robbery and Whitmore's murder.