"It doesn't concern us whether he has or not," said Britz. "His case is up to the Federal authorities."
"But when and where was the substitution made?" asked the chief.
"On board the train to Atlanta," Britz informed him. "Whitmore was handcuffed to the marshal when they left the Tombs. They occupied a stateroom on one of the through parlor cars. It is unusual for a deputy to engage a stateroom, or to permit his prisoner to engage one, but no law is violated by doing so. All that is required of the deputy is to deliver his prisoner at the jail and obtain a receipt for him.
"The substitute followed the deputy and the prisoner into the compartment, the handcuffs were slipped from Whitmore's wrist to Timson's, and, at Philadelphia, Whitmore left the train. It is now up to us to trace his movements from the time he alighted at Philadelphia until he walked to his death in his office."
A long interval of silence followed, in which the three men tried to appraise the precise value of the substitution of prisoners in its relation to Whitmore's untimely death. Whitmore had escaped prison only to meet a worse fate, and in less than twenty-four hours after his wrist was freed from the cold pressure of the steel bracelet.
"It was Beard who engineered the substitution," observed the chief.
"Yes," replied Britz.
"And to save Whitmore from prison he took a chance of going to jail."
"Evidently he stood ready with the deputy and the substitute to forfeit his liberty for the sake of his employer."
"But was he actuated by loyalty to Whitmore or did he have a sinister design of his own?" questioned Manning.