"Let him wait!" Broderick blustered out. Nevertheless a shadowy gloom settled down upon them all. Thorne was the first to break the silence.
"If Murgatroyd drags Cradlebaugh's into this murder case there'll be the devil to pay."
"He's got to keep it out," insisted Broderick. "Confound it! If he drags Cradlebaugh's into it, he'll drag into it his own organisation! He doesn't know the men who are behind it—its party affiliations, its patrons. If he makes this case a handle for his confounded investigations—well——"
"He will!" interrupted the captain of police. "See if he don't..."
"What if he does?" protested Broderick. "There isn't a grand jury ever been picked that would indict Cradlebaugh's! And there you are!"
"So long as public opinion don't get to work," ventured the captain.
Broderick started.
"You've hit the nail upon the head, captain," he assented, as he smote the table with his clenched fist. "That's why I'm worried. If public opinion gets to work, why say, it will——"
"Keep cool now, keep cool," counselled Thorne. "I'll see Murgatroyd," he went on; "this is the time of all times that he's got to do what we tell him to do; and if he don't—we'll break him on the wheel!"
Thorne smiled and jerked his head toward Pemmican.