"I was waiting to see if he couldn't show he was innocent without—"
"Without getting you into it. You wanted to be shielded at any cost." The scorn that intolerant youth has for moral turpitude rang in her clear voice.
"I thought maybe we could both get out of it that way," he explained weakly.
"Oh, you thought! As soon as you saw this morning's paper you ought to have hurried to the police station and given yourself up."
"I was ill, I keep telling you."
"Your man could telephone, couldn't he? He wasn't ill, too, was he?"
Whitford interfered. "Hold on, honey. Don't rub it in. Clarendon was a bit rattled. That's natural. The question is, what's he going to do now?"
Their host groaned. "Durand'll see I go to the chair—and I only struck the man to save my own life. I wasn't trying to kill the fellow. He was shooting at me, and I had to do it."
"Of course," agreed Whitford. "We've got proof of that. Lindsay is one witness. He must have seen it all. I've got in my pocket one of the bullets Collins shot. That's more evidence. Then—"
Beatrice broke in excitedly. "Dad, Mr. Muldoon just told me over the 'phone that they've got the express wagon. The plank with the bullet holes was in it. And the driver has confessed that he and a carpenter, whose name he had given, changed the partition for Durand."