"He wasn't a miner, and he wasn't soused. I guess he was a 'gunman.'"
"What d'you mean?"
"Just what I said. I'd been watching him a while from the box above us. I've seen enough to figger this thing's for the p'lice. We're going to put this thing through for what it's worth, and my bank roll's going to talk plenty."
Bill had risen from his knees. He was standing beyond the two bodies. His shrewd eyes were steadily regarding Pap, who, in turn, was gazing squarely into the cold eyes of John Kars.
Just for a moment it looked as though he were about to fling back hot words at the unquestioned challenge in them. But the light suddenly died out of his eyes. His thin lips compressed, and he shrugged his shoulders.
"Guess that's up to you," he said, and moved away towards the bar.
Kars gazed down at the dead form of Alec Mowbray. All the coldness had gone out of his eyes. It had been replaced with a world of pity, for which no words of his could have found expression. The spectacle was terrible, and the sight of it filled him with an emotion which no sight of death had ever before stirred. He was thinking of the widowed mother. He was thinking of the girl whose gray eyes had taught him so much. He was wondering how he must carry the news to these two living souls, and fling them once more to the depths of despair such as they had endured through the murder of a husband and father.
He was aroused from his grievous meditations by a sharp hammering on the main doors. It was the police. Kars turned at once.
"Open that door!" he said sharply to the waiter standing beside it.
The man hesitated and looked at Pap. Kars would not be denied.