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leads irresistibly to the conclusion that one of them shot Whitmore. There is not the slightest trace of any outside agency having been employed." "But if they're individually innocent, how can they be collectively guilty?" demanded the chief. "You've misconceived my meaning," said Britz. "You know, in a general way, what has been accomplished in the case. So you must be aware of the peculiar actions of all four of the suspects. The fact that they engaged Luckstone to look after their interests argues a guilty knowledge of Whitmore's death. Then, their silence, their fear of saying something that might incriminate one or all of them--it is impossible to reconcile their conduct with innocence! No. When you survey the entire case, you cannot escape the conviction that Whitmore met his death at the hands of one of them." "But man alive," broke in the chief, "what evidence have you? Why, you're further away from the solution of the crime than when you started." "Not at all!" Britz assured him. "We're going to solve the case to-morrow morning, in this very room." Manning and Greig looked at each other in blank bewilderment. In the light of Britz's explanation of the case, his confident assertion could only be regarded as a vain boast. Or was it the expression of a last, flickering hope, to which he clung desperately, like a man staking his last dollar on a thousand-to-one chance? "What I want you to see clearly," the detective continued, "is the utter futility of trying to discover the murderer through an investigation from the outside. Almost from the outset I realized the utter impossibility of endeavoring to single out the assassin through following the ordinary clues. That's the reason I directed the entire investigation along a single line--the only line that could possibly lead to success." The faces of Manning and Greig grew more clouded. They could comprehend the reasoning which cleared the suspects, but they were unable to understand by what contradiction of logic Britz meant to upset his own conclusion. "Let me make myself clear to you," Britz proceeded. "Such evidence as we have, or such as we might be permitted to present to a jury, all tends to establish the innocence of Mrs. Collins, Ward and Beard. On the other hand, it gives a guilty aspect to Collins's conduct. Yet I am convinced that Collins did NOT do the shooting, while one of the others did. "There is only one way in which we can s
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