d the helmsman see?"

"Nothing forward of the after house."

The prosecution closed its case with me. The defense, having virtually
conducted its case by cross-examination of the witnesses already
called, contented itself with producing a few character witnesses, and
"rested." Goldstein made an eloquent plea of "no case," and asked the
judge so to instruct the jury.

This was refused, and the case went to the jury on the seventh day--a
surprisingly short trial, considering the magnitude of the crimes.

The jury disagreed. But, while they wrangled, McWhirter and I were
already on the right track. At the very hour that the jurymen were
being discharged and steps taken for a retrial, we had the murderer
locked in my room in a cheap lodging-house off Chestnut Street.

CHAPTER XXIII

FREE AGAIN

With the submission of the case to the jury, the witnesses were given
their freedom. McWhirter had taken a room for me for a day or two to
give me time to look about; and, his own leave of absence from his
hospital being for ten days, we had some time together.

My situation was better than it had been in the summer. I had my
strength again, although the long confinement had told on me. But my
position was precarious enough. I had my pay from the Ella, and
nothing else. And McWhirter, with a monthly stipend from his hospital
of twenty-five dollars, was not much better off.

My first evening of freedom we spent at the theater. We bought the
best seats in the house, and we dressed for the occasion--being in the
position of having nothing to wear between shabby everyday wear and
evening clothes.

"It is by way of celebration," Mac said, as he put a dab of
shoe-blacking over a hole in his sock; "you having been restored to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's the game,
Leslie--the pursuit of happiness."

I was busy with a dress tie that I had washed and dried by pasting it
on a mirror, an old trick of mine when funds ran low. I was trying to
enter into Mac's festive humor, but I had not reacted yet from the
horrors of the past few months.

"Happiness!" I said scornfully. "Do you call this happiness?"

He put up the blacking, and, coming to me, stood eyeing me in the
mirror as I arranged my necktie.

"Don't be bitter," he said. "Happiness was my word. The Good Man was
good to you when he made you. That ought to be a source of
satisfaction. And as for the girl--"

"What girl?"