"Ordinarily, we are both aware, the capture of an unimportant post office robber, would not be allotted more than a paragraph or two in the newspapers. As the banking investigation was occupying pages of space seven weeks ago, Travis's arrest was not even mentioned in most of the papers, while those that took note of it, buried the item on one of the inside pages.
"Whitmore, alias Travis, had the ablest lawyer in the city to advise him. Undoubtedly Tom Luckstone counseled him as to the manner in which he was to conduct himself in jail and in court so as not to arouse newspaper curiosity. Well, ten days before Whitmore returned to his death, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years and a half in jail. And on the day before he returned to his business, a deputy marshal started with him for Atlanta."
"But how did he get away?" interrupted the chief. "There was nothing in the papers about an escape."
"Arthur Travis is in the Atlanta prison," said Britz. "But the prisoner isn't Herbert Whitmore."
The chief's eyes alternated between Britz and Greig, as if trying to read the explanation of the puzzling circumstances, in their faces.
"I don't quite get it," he acknowledged.
"Of course, the prisoner can't be Whitmore. He's dead. There's no doubt of that."
"Not the slightest," acquiesced Britz. "Yet Whitmore and Travis were one and the same person. Now what do you think occurred?"
"A substitution of prisoners," guessed the chief.
"Precisely," said Britz. "I sweated a confession out of the substitute. He's a poor, sorrowful creature, named Timson. Two weeks ago he was down and out, broke, jobless, starving. He was shuffling dejectedly along Broadway when a man tapped him on the shoulder and asked a few minutes' conversation with him. As Timson had nothing to lose but time, he offered no resistance when the stranger led him in the direction of a restaurant.