CHAPTER XXIV
RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE
"Dead!" The detective bent over Mrs. Whitney. "Shot through the heart." He turned to his silent companions. "Who fired that revolver?" and his own covered Miller menacingly.
Miller, spying the electric lamp, switched it on before answering. Still silent, he pointed to the telegrapher's outfit which confronted them and to the tell-tale wires leading to the outer world.
"The shot was fired," he said, "by the man who tunneled out to the conduit in which are the cables running to the White House and War, State, and Navy Building, and tapped them."
"Where is he?" Mitchell cast a bewildered look about the small chamber.
"I felt someone brush by me on the stairs in the darkness," volunteered Foster, recovering somewhat from his stupefaction. "I fear he has got safely away."
"No." Miller stepped back from Mrs. Whitney's side. "Chief Connor of the Secret Service has a cordon of operatives about the house. Heinrich Strauss, alias Henry Ross, chauffeur, cannot escape. Listen, isn't that a shot?"
"I hope to God they've caught him alive!" exclaimed Mitchell, looking sorrowfully at the dead woman. "He'll swing for this murder, if not for the death of Sinclair Spencer."
"I doubt if he was guilty of that crime," said Miller quietly.