"Can't help you out," he answered, "for I never saw the wallet. I don't know...."
Murgatroyd went off on another tack.
"Very well, then; but there's another thing that you may clear up.... By the way, Pemmican, perhaps you don't know that Challoner has confessed?"
Pemmican's physiognomy lost its doleful appearance. And he cried joyfully:—
"Confessed? Gee, that's good—great! Confessed? Well, say, counsellor, it just had to come to that!"
"Yes," conceded Murgatroyd; "but there's another thing which bothers me, though I don't know that it complicates matters exactly. It's a mere detail again. Challoner says he shot his man in Room A in Cradlebaugh's; you say the quarrel took place there, that Hargraves went out first, and that Challoner followed him. Hargraves, as we know, was found dead in the street above. That's right—isn't it?"
"Sure," returned Pemmican, positively. "I didn't see him fire the shot; nobody saw that. It's a good thing, though, because between you and me, Prosecutor, notwithstanding my testimony I thought that you'd have some trouble in making out a case. Circumstances is something, but they ain't everything, you know."
Murgatroyd agreed to this, and added:—
"We've got certainty now, because he's confessed—but he's mixed as to the place of the shooting. He thinks it was in your place—that you were present, that's all."
Murgatroyd seemed satisfied. He sat down at his desk and from a drawer he drew a box of cigars. Now he leaned toward Pemmican and said confidentially:—