"The women both prove it," urged the officer.
"And yet some still unfathomed game of Ferris made him Clayton's secret enemy. Ferris wanted that beautiful heiress; he wanted to completely estrange and supplant Clayton, and so to reach old Worthington's millions. For that, he clung to the unsuspecting comrade of his bachelor life. Look to the West for light in this! Believe me, if any one knows, it is Miss Worthington! She is one woman in a million, a woman who does not talk!"
"What do you mean, Dennis?" sharply said the young lawyer.
The simple policeman stoutly answered, "I observed that Miss Alice seemed to have gained a great mastery over Counselor Stillwell and her Detroit lawyers.
"She was with her father for hours before he died, and I'm of the opinion that he told her many things that none of the lawyers even dream of, secrets that perhaps even you do not suspect! I'm only a plain policeman, yet strange schemes are in these millionaires' heads often.
"The great man had his own private uses for Ferris, and for the
Senator uncle, who knows what great designs ended with his death.
"Believe me, she is following out her father's last advice; and if she lets Ferris off easy, you must do the same!
"As for Fritz Braun, he at first only intended, evidently, to lure poor Clayton into the Art Gallery or his own drug-store, through this pretty Hungarian, and, from a study of Clayton's habits, change the valises and so rob him by the old trick! The bunco game!
"But fortune willed otherwise, and Braun took the chance of Clayton's faith in the girl. He did not know that Clayton was so fondly devoted to the woman.
"The murder was a sudden inspiration, arising from Clayton's headlong imprudence.